if the polar caps melted, would the central united states be underwater. if so, how much of the rest of the land in the world would be?
Not the central U.S., I don't think. Water expands as it freezes, and somewhere around 70%(I think more) of the ice in the north pole is already floating, you might actually get a net decrease. Only land-bound ice would be a problem, and Antarctica's got most of that.Some of that might not be a problem, it depends on how much is landlocked and would form lakes. But global warming is a natural trend, reducing CO2 emissions would do precious little to stop it if the earth decides to warm up a bit.
More than a few, and more than just some. LIke the Ozone scare, alot of the evidence against is stronger than the evidence for.
Evidence can be very subjective ... People that present science as something black <--> white are not involved in it or are ignorant.
What is it purple and green. Dang I’ll have to get new paper and toner for my laser printer. As for water levels. It is safe to assume that even if all the water on the earth was to melt, bubble up from beneath, and rain down from the sky, only a small fraction of the total land area would be lost. I read a theory recently that stated because the moon’s creation remove so much of the lighter mantle from earth it allowed plate tectonics to evolve and pile up the huge continents that keep us all dry. Without it Earth might have been a water world.
Given that Badwater in Death Valley Az, is 282 feet below sea level now, if the levels were to rise enough to force a backflow from the california bay into the south central US, couldn't much of what is now the south central protion of the nation become inundated? What would prevent the south west from becoming a large extention of the Pacific ocean?
Well i would agree along the lines with Andre, given the fact that water exspands only about 1/10 when frozen, here the nothern caps would even out displament consuming 1/8th of the ice above water, the remainer of the ice above water would be excess water, assuming the ice sheet above water is a mean 200 ft, minus 1/8, or 25 ft, the remained of the ice above water would be over flow at some 175 ft of ice above water, the area of the north ice sheet covers about 8,000,000 sq miles, so 8,000,000 X 175 ft or( 8,000,000sq mile X 0.03 mile) equals about 270,000 cubic miles of water in over flow for the north ice sheet above water, to be added to theworld oceans of about 308,400,000 cubic miles of water in area of 139,670,000 sq.miles, therefore the ice sheet above water in the north which was the remainder after compensation would rise the world sea level about 9 ft. So antartica is about 5,500,000 Sq miles of land mass above sea sea level with a ice sheet at a average of 200ft, and a sea ice sheet equal to the area of land mass, would have a sea ice sheet that would rise the ocean sea level 4.5 ft, and a land mass ice sheet that would rise ocean sea levels to 9 ft, if all the ice caps where to melt at once the rise in ocean sea level would be about 20 to 23 ft. how ever a reality is that the ice may be several times denser in the continous ice barriers/sheets, and there by multipling the above figure several times if not more.as this type of pack ice sheet at the caps is in places a mile and more thick,over a significant area.(US Submarines reports). so the world sea level would more proably rise like about 500 ft depening on the density of which ia m unsure at the level of denstiy to whcih water can be pushed to a solid. the denstiy of water is 1, DWAYNE D.L.RABON
Ok, Andre but my figures where a little different, As I included the exstent of sea ice, during the times of there largest exstent, where the poles have a diameter of about 60 degrees or 4,140 miles. In figures for the north polar cap, I used a mean average of 200 ft for ice above the water line. With the exstent of sea ice during it greatest time of extent. The sea ice is definitly not 200 ft thick for a good portion of the area of radius, but gets thicker in the permenate polar cap of year around ice as it reaches the geographical north pole, this thickness was used to compenstate and even the distribution of ice to gain a average of 200 ft to the sq. miles of area of the pole at the ices greatest extent. This resulted in a increase of 9 ft. In the south pole I use the same equation for sea ice, excluding the area of the land mass covered by permante ice which gave me a increase of 4.5 ft. Given the information that you provided from the website, the ice sheet covering the land mass of antartica alone would cause a increase of 369 ft. Giving a total for both poles at some 382 ft inculding sea ice variations. In addtion to these figures there still is the event of denstiy of the ice which would be greater in the permenate ice, and greatest in the antarctic, where ice can be compressed against a counter mass of land to increase its density. In contrast the denstiy of ice in the north arctic would relvant to the bouyance on water having a maxium denstiy some where around 32 ft per ton. The entire mass having a under water arch of about 1,000 ft in radius assuming the majority is not forzen to the sea bed in shallow eastern degrees longitude. To my though understanding the exstent of undersea ice is frozen to the bed during the ice sheets greates exstent times which prohibits submarines from direct passage under the polar ice caps in the north, which I think would cause variation in the development of denstiy in the ice, but not nearly that of what would exist in antarctica. I did not take time to do the math on the maxium density which can be gained by ice under compression so it may be greater that we think. I have heard of calulation that suggested that much of the world would be covered in water in the event of the caps melting, maybe those calculations inlcude the density value of ice at the poles. This denstiy question would be a good question for a antarctic reseacrher/scientist and a important one. DWAYNE D.L.RABON
