3 ms·

When the same starts happening in the Arctic, then we have a really bad spiralling problem on our hands. Bye bye ice. Hello higher sea levels.

• eCa 12y ago
  While it definitely will have bad consequenses, the melting of the arctic ice will not directly lead to rising sea levels (since it is floating).
  • _delirium 12y ago
    It could raise levels slightly. By Archimedes principle the floating sea ice displaces an equivalent mass of ocean water, so there's no net mass change. But due to differing densities of fresh and salt water, it displaces slightly less volume of salt water than it will contribute in melted freshwater (by about 2.6%, according to [1]). But this may also be complicated by temperature changes [2]. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2007.03472.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2007.... [2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL030784/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL030784/full
  • enraged_camel 12y ago
    No, this is incorrect. Most of arctic ice is landlocked: it is currently not in ocean waters. This is why its melting directly contributes to sea level rise. Imagine filling half of a salad bowl with water, then resting a strainer full of ice on top of the bowl. As the ice melts, the water will drip into the bowl and raise the water level. That's basically what is happening with the arctic ice.
  • jaekwon 12y ago
    There is enough landlocked ice to raise sea level by 80 meters or so. Here's a projection that claims it'll rise 2.5 meters by 2040. http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/more-than-25m-sea-level-rise-by-2040.html http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/more-than-25m-sea-le...
  • Gravityloss 12y ago
    You would have been closer to correct if you said sea ice.
    • eCa 12y ago
      Yes, I've been following Arctic Sea Ice News[1] for so long I atomatically read "arctic" as "artic sea". (And many people seem to think that the arctic sea ice melting will contribute as much as the landbased ice to the sea level problem.) When the landbased ice in the arctic region starts melting in earnest we will have a rather large problem.. [1] http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
• alex_anglin 12y ago
  Methane vents occur in other parts of the world as well. For instance, Yanartaş in Turkey is a methane vent that is associated with a mythology in a couple of respects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanarta%C5%9F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanarta%C5%9F