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Asked by anon-361814 on 8 Nov 2023.
Question: What happens when all ice in the world melts
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Jonathan Allen answered on 8 Nov 2023:
While this would be very unlikely to happen for a long time based on current global warming rates, it is something that could happen in the distant future if climate change continues or gets worse. All that ice will melt into water and that water would end up in the oceans – making sea levels rise a lot. Sea levels are already rising due to ice caps melting from current climate change, which makes low lying land at risk of flooding or becoming permanently underwater. We have already seen this happen to small islands – completely disappearing under the sea – and this would happen more and more if all the ice caps melted away. Even higher land would be at risk from erosion to cliffs, meaning that land falls would happen as cliffs slip away. The increase in water in the world could also affect weather patterns – leading to more extreme weather events.
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Octavia Brayley answered on 8 Nov 2023:
Ice sheets are already melting and it’s speeding up as the world is heating up. For example, there are fears that as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melts, it could contribute over 10 feet (3 meters) to rising sea levels within the next two hundred years. In fact, a recent paper was published where the scientists concluded that “mitigation of greenhouse gases now has limited power to prevent ocean warming that could lead to the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet”. A large rise in sea levels will cause flooding, erosion of coastlines, and destruction of low-lying habitats. Many millions of people will be affected and many species of animals as well. It’s important that we act now to try and avoid this happening, but unfortunately, it’s looking like it’s probably inevitable. That’s why we need lots of people to get involved in STEM to protect our planet!
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Ian McKinley answered on 9 Nov 2023:
If all ice on earth melted, sea level would rise by more than 60 metres (about 200 feet). Although this would certainly take a long time, the impact would be devastating – all coastal cities and entire low-lying countries would disappear under the sea. Mainland UK would be transformed into a number of islands corresponding to current uplands.
Actually, because many important parts of the UK (especially England) are less than 10 m above present sea level, even more limited ice melting would have a huge impact (https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1201342/sea-levels-rising-climate-change-global-warming-rising-sea-map-effects ). The very important thing is thus to do everything possible to ensure that such melting does not occur.
I live in Switzerland, where all parts of the country are at least 300m above sea level, so we would not be impacted by flooding. Even here, however, global climate change associated with ice melting would have huge impacts. -
Olly Bartlett answered on 9 Nov 2023:
Ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers are made up of thousands of years of snowfall that has been squished into ice. As this ice is formed of freshwater when it melts it adds to sea-level. You can try this at home by filling a glass to the brim with salty water and putting a fresh water ice cube on top. When the ice cube melts the glass will overflow. So, if all this ice melted across the world sea level would rise by about 70 meters (up to the clock on big ben… ish). This would flood many cities around the world. Fortunately, this will take a very very long time to happen. Though even melting a bit of this ice can raise sea-levels enough that storms can become more dangerous to coastal cities.
If all the sea ice melts, this is ocean water that freezes in place because of cold air temperatures, this does not really raise sea level that much. However, sea ice is very bright, especially when it has fresh snow on it. So if you melt all the sea ice, the polar seas become less reflective. More heat from the sun is absorbed by the ocean, which warms up the polar seas and atmosphere. This can have a really big impact on weather and weather extremes!
Great question with a lot to think about!
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Paula McMahon answered on 9 Nov 2023:
the seas levels rise – which is worrying to low lying nations and those who live by the coast
also the ice reflects the sun and has for millions of years acted as regulator – when gone we will loose this benefit
check out this https://youtu.be/75PcsagXa9Q?si=uS7TZPD8dy3AdSwz
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Andrew Lyon answered on 9 Nov 2023:
We’re already seeing impacts from flooding on low lying land around the world due to increasing sea levels. As well as increased sea levels there would significant changes in weather patterns too so a lot of people and animals would be affected. That’s why it’s important that we do more to tackle climate change which is causing the ice to melt and there are lots of scientists around the world like us who are working to reduce the impact of climate change and looking at how we need to adapt to the changing climate.
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Amy Stockwell answered on 10 Nov 2023:
A good example is the country of Tuvalu. It is a group of islands near Austalia, and only just above sea level. So as the sea levels rise, the islands get smaller and the people will have to move to other countries with higher ground. Australia promised today to let the people of Tuvalu move to Australia.
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