Waterworld revelation
You know I just realized something very dumb. I was reading about how, through satellite measurements, scientists were able to determine that polar ice was much thinner than originally estimated. The article stated that, although a lot of ice was melting, it would not effect sea level.
Now for some dumb reason, I never questioned the Waterworld premise of, if all of the polar ice melts it will cover the earth. I was gullible. I was thinking about it just now and realized, if that were true, then the amount of above-water ice in the poles must be at least greater than all the mountains in the world. And since the highest point is a mountain and not an iceberg….
Then I got to thinking some more. Let’s say half of the ice is north pole and half is south pole. Which means that half of the ice is floating. Icebergs, as many people know, are typically only 1/7th - 1/9th above water. Water, as many people know, expands when frozen. I found out, by 11%. So when an iceburg melts, only about 1.5% of the volume of the iceburg will be added to the volume of the water!*Since the percentage of an iceberg that is above water is directly related to the difference in density between the ice and water, it might seem logical that the two values would completely cancel out. I think the leftover comes from the difference between the densities of saltwater (the sea) and freshwater (the ice).
Which means that of all the polar ice on Earth were to melt, ice from Antarctica would contribute more than 95% of the added volume of the ocean. Meaning, using my previous logic, that for the complete melting of polar ice to result in a submerged Earth — Antarctica would have to be bigger than all of the rest of the land on Earth.
Boy I feel dumb. Why did I even share this with you? 