What happens if all of antarctica melts

As we slept, sea levels would rise by a whopping 66 meters. While all this chaos ensues aboveground, something equally sinister is happening below. All that rising saltwater will infiltrate groundwater reserves farther inland, forcing its way into nearby freshwater aquifers.

You know, the ones that supply our drinking water, irrigation systems, and power-plant cooling systems? All those aquifers would be destroyed. Not good. This will wreak havoc on our ocean currents and weather patterns. Take the Gulf Stream, for example. It's a strong ocean current that brings warm air to northern Europe and relies on dense, salty water from the Arctic in order to function.

But a flood of freshwater would dilute the current and could weaken or even stop it altogether. Without that warm air, temperatures in northern Europe would plummet, and that could spawn a mini ice age, according to some experts. That's not even the worst of it. What about the Arctic polar cap? Why don't we hear about the problems caused by the ice that melts at the North Pole? Because more ice melts each summer.

Let me start with the ice at the South Pole. Normally, I would do a traditional " back of the envelope " estimation and just get approximate values for stuff. However, in this case, I really don't have a feeling for the size of the Antarctic ice cap. I'm not sure about the area or the depth of ice. Honestly, it's not my fault. It's because I grew up with this Mercator projection map.

This kind of map makes Antarctica impossibly huge. To get a rough estimation of the size of Antarctica, we think of it as a circle with a diameter equal to the width of the United States. See—now we've made a connection between something you don't really have a feeling for to something you might be familiar with.

So, how far is it across the US? Let's say it has a width of width of around 3, miles 4, km. So, if we approximate this as the diameter of a circular Antarctica, the surface area would be:.

Forgive me, but I'm going to cheat a little bit. Since I really don't know if this value is legit or crazy, I'm going to take a peek at the Wikipedia Antarctica page. Oh great—I'm reasonably close. I feel better now. But wait! There's one other tough thing to estimate—the average depth of the ice sheet at the South Pole. Well, heck. I already looked at the page and I see that the average ice thickness is 1. It's all for the best. There's no way I would have guessed it's that thick.

That's a crazy amount of ice. So now we can visualize this ice sheet as a giant cylinder—maybe more like a hockey-puck-shaped cylinder.

Breaking news. Other problems would overshadow sea level rises. My thoughts exactly start relocating inland? Stop big fat money makers building millions of new homes in coastal regions. If you do the calculations using the total volume of ice above sea level at 30 million cubic kilometers, you end up with a rise of approx 15 meters.

So I always take sea level rise with a grain of salt. Also, as the water would flow into the oceans, I would assume they would depress the crust down with the extra weight moving to the center and force other higher areas to rise? Thats a melt putting up to ft of fresh water into the oceans which can change the flow of the oceans currents, possibly starting a new iceage. There are some errors in what people are being lead to believe.

First ice takes more volume of space than water. Ice that is on water and melts will not be a problem as far as sea levels. The ice on land masses such as Greenland and Antarctica, however will cause the sea levels to rise. The speed at which this happens will make all the difference. Yes great volumes of fresh water dumping into sea water will change the salinity and that is a problem to life in the oceans. More water to evaporate will change weather patterns and increased humidity will make the air unbreathable at some point.

Mass tonnage of glaciers on land masses will be relieved and the land elevation will rebound. We are still experiencing this effect in the northern states of the US with booms and cracks as the compressed land is still expanding therefore it will take a very long time to rebound and rise above the water levels. Lets break down the amount of rise. Okay what is the altitude of your city, state or country?

Remember that rivers and streams will rise as well. We are at feet above sea level — think we will be okay. The coast will definitely change and we may lose some states. Will there be enough space for everyone to live?

You must understand as well that some of the warming and ice melt is out of our control and has nothing to do with surface issues. The current that travels from Antarctica north off the west coast of South America in the most recent years is being heated by increased activity of volcanic vents in the Pacific Ocean along the Ring of Fire and is much warmer when it reaches the Arctic than it should be and melts the ice from below, then as it makes the north warmer it returns to the south warmer than it should be as well contributing to the same effect.

We have no control over what the earth does. The change in weather patterns is effected by the increased atmospheric moisture and the warming of the Pacific right now by the same vents. It changes the jet stream, increases precipitation and shifts where it is dumped and makes it less predictable and more violent cause there is more energy to feed into the storms. Season are then shorter, longer, unpredictable temperatures fluctuations, effecting growing seasons and large scale crop losses — which we can adapt to if we make changes on a massive scale to ensure crop production.

We can make changes in how we effect the environment, but that will only delay the inevitable natural cycle, so if we are to survive we must start adapting now for those circumstances.

We must prepare for the changes not just trying to stop them. A fellow told me that if just the ice on Antarctica melted the seas would rise ft. So 1 cubic mile of water is X X that is ,,, cu ft which we divide into total cu ft, or 4,,, cu miles of water to raise the seas ft.

Antarctica has 5,, square miles so the ice would have to be miles high. It still means that the seas would rise less that a ft. Relax, but move your beach towel a few yards up the dunes before Your numbers are wrong.

I do the same calculation, although I use meters as length units, and I arrive at numbers very consistent with the prediction of about 66 meters of sea level rise.

According to Wikipedia, the estimated amount of ice in Antarctica is Dividing by the above two numbers, you get an average thickness of the ice cap of 1. The last number is too high because the density of water is less than that of ice multiply by 0.

The first number, 1. Hmm, using the volume on a sphere and the average diameter of earth as meters, Trying to work it out using area is prone to errors, where as using the volumes of a spheres and some simple subtration, tou can find the total volume of a shell at x meters high.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is floating on water, therefore it is already displacing its weight of water. Arctic ice is the threat, but of course climate change affects them both without distinction.

This is incorrect. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is not floating, it is grounded below sea level and would raise global sea levels by around 58 m on full melting. The Greenland Ice Sheet is also melting, and currently contributes a significant proportion of all melt from land ice.

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