Global warming: will the ice of both north/south pole melt?

Question

if ice melts the sea level will inrease. How many towns will be submerged? any idea?

Answer 1

This, of course, is the big question to which, as yet, there is no simple answer.

There are so many factors involved including quite a lot of reinforcers (e.g. more warmth = melting ice caps = less sunlight reflected = more warmth) and many unknown variables (e.g. what will humans do?) that we cannot predict one way or another.

Notice this means that will I would be sceptical if someone said that it is certain that both ice caps would melt, I am also sceptical of anyone who says they won't or that it would take 1,000 years, etc. We simply don't understand all the variables well enough. For example, recent research suggests that liquid water builds up underneath ice sheets that help them detach (slide) off the land into gigantic icebergs (like the 7 sq mile one off Canada last month) that can drift into warm seas melting much faster but who knows?

However, to answer your other question, keiths 81's is right - 60-80m is about it - but so is Ynot - trouble will start long before complete melting occurs.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says that "several million residents in low-lying areas could be displaced in the next few decades.

Low-lying coastal areas constitute only two percent of the total land surface of the earth, but contain 10 percent of the world’s current population."

"Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, may lose up to one-fifth of its surface area if the sea level rises by one metre." - we don't need to wait for a rise of 60-70m!

Finally, I do wish to challenge DaveH's complacency:

He says "the sea level will [only] rise between 8 inches and two feet by the end of the century". Two feet is enough to displace hundreds of millions of people - most of them in developing countries, especially Asia.

Where will they go? WIll the USA take them in (as the biggest polluter it surely has a moral duty to do so)? If the developed world won't take them, what will happen? Will they accept starvation & disease or might they try force?

Global warming is a global issue - even if you live in Boulder at 1600m asl, you will be affected in some way. The idea that "even it you do live very close to sea level you'll still have plenty of time to raise a family and move elsewhere before it's an issue" is like advising people to go under a tree to shelter from the rain and even if that tree gets so wet that it doesn't shelter you anymore, you can always stand under another...

...by the time you and your family want to move somewhere else, others will have got there first!

Answer 2

Both the ice caps will melt and basically, the world will drown!

Answer 3

the towns or cities nearby seashores will submerged.

Answer 4

You've been fed a bunch of misinformation.  The ice is actually increasing on the south pole and stable on the north pole.

Our climate has been much warmer in the past and the planet did just fine.

Don't worry so much.  It's not healthy for you or the planet.

Answer 5

Global warming, caused by either man or nature, will melt ice in both polar regions. The difference between the north and south is that most of the northern polar ice is floating in the Arctic Ocean whereas southern ice is mostly over the land continent of Antarctica. Ice melting on the sea will hardly affect sea levels as it is displacing it's own weight of water, but ice melting on land and glaciers pushing icebergs into the sea will cause a gradual rise in sea levels.

There is so much ice on Antarctica that it would take ages for it to all melt and if it did the sea level would rise sufficiently to flood most of the inhabited and agricultural areas of the world.

However, long before that happens a small rise in sea level of just two or three feet would be sufficient to cause catastrophic damage to populations, agriculture, and industry in most of the worlds maritime nations. Only a few towns would be totally submerged but thousands of towns and many millions of people would be affected.

Answer 6

For decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small. It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales!

But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to give the sinister prize they want most of all: total control of American politics, economic activity, and even individual behavior.

With global warming, however, greenhouse gasbags can argue that auto emissions in Ohio threaten people in Paris, and that only global government can tackle such problems.

National sovereignty? Democracy?

Forget it: global warming has now brought the Left closer to global government, statism, and the eradication of individual rights than it has ever been before.

Answer 7

Remember Noah and his ark?  Start building now!!!!

Answer 8

Then north pole will  be mainly because america is the most polluted country

Answer 9

it's so many

Answer 10

The poles are not melting abnormally. Even the IPCC only projects that the sea level will rise between 8 inches and two feet by the end of the centuary.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report...

So even it you do live very close to sea level you'll still have plenty of time to raise a family and move elsewhere before it's an issue.

Global temperatures have stopped rising. http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/dia...

The North Pole is not melting away (nor is the South Pole which is increasing its ice mass). The University of Illinois updates all the polar data regularly. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

If you really want to satisfy yourself the the North Pole is still frozen then I recommend NASA's daily satellite pic's.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realt...

No need to panic yet.

Answer 11

First let us interject a small piece of reality here 60 meters is about 200 feet. This is approximately the rise that occurred at the end of the ice age 10,000 years ago. To get this rise required the melting of glacier’s that covered north America down nearly to the mason Dixon line to a thickness of about 1 to 2 miles. They also covered most of Europe and Asia. There is not that much ice left on the face of the earth. If every piece of ice on earth melted it could possibly at the absolute maximum raise sea levels worldwide by 6 inches.

So either those who are promoting this nonsense know very little if anything about what they are saying or they are saying these things for financial or political gain. I feel it is for both reasons this con is being perpetrated on the world.

Answer 12

it would rise by about 60-70 metres.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environm...

Answer 13

i think it will be true if it will be then oh!!! i am frightened everybody will be in a trouble

Answer 14

Our globe will be under water.

Answer 15

chances are very bleak. cold time will come again and ice will cover all the place in the world.

Answer 16

nooooo   only the north will melt...............

oh and yes over 3 will be submerged!!!  YES I SAID 3!!!! omgzzz