If the south polar ice cap melted, how high would the oceans rise?
411381
About 6 feet, which isn't an issue, unless you live at,near or below sea level. If you do, you should move anyway.
180496
Massive climate disturbance. Less ice will mean the Earth will reflect less sunlight back into space. Habitats, therefore life forms will disappear. Our climate will most likely be ireversibly changed. More heat will mean the ice caps have virtually nil chance of reforming for probably thousands or even millions of years. Flooding probably. Climate change will hit. Areas now receiving lots of rain will probably get less and vice versa. Warm ecosysytems will shift towards the poles, displacing plants and animals already there. Summers will be longer, hotter and drier; spring will come earlier and winters will be shorter and less cold. Cataclysmic changes are awaiting future generations unless these trends are reversed. This will be no picnic.
1077141
i would suspect that rainfall would decrease. the lower temperatures would result in less evaporation and the resultant precipitation. also, more water would become trapped in the ice caps. \n\nwe dont need to worry about this though as the trend suggests that things will get hotter rather than colder, despite the fact that we are in an ice age.
202062
Global Warming is cause by solar activity.  The increase in the number of sun spots causes the earth to warm.  The temperatures were hotter in the 1920 than now.  The hurricanes were also just as bad then as now.  A rise in CO2 from 1/4% to 1/3% in the atmosphere has no impact on global temperature.  The scientific community has only been accurately measuring temperatures for 30 years.  The only validated temperature measurement of the earth is from the polar satellite.  In 30 years it has only seen on temperature anomaly.  A rise of 1/4 of a degree caused by the full moon.  No other measurement system has shown the accuracy to measure this rise.  Therefore they are not! The polar ice cap has only been watched for 30 years by satellite.  No one measured it before, so how can they say it is now melting for all time.  They don’t know, they are drawing 1000 year conclusions with 30 years of data.  Not possible, not valid.
1176998
they say if there ever is a global warming, all the water in the oceans will only rise 20 more feet than it is now. and i am 80 feet above sea level, so i have nothing to worry about.
819923
Careful calculations from the MIT Physics and Climatological Research Center in MASS. state unequivocally it would be "immeasurable" and could very well bring on the next Ice Age...the obliteration again of all life as we know it on this planet.\n\nOn the other hand it would be great to see that pathetic, Far Left Wing ACLU Adoring Hyper-Liberal along with Al Franken and of course the Wicked Witch of the West Nancy Pelosi the San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Rights Values Champion  disintergrated!
914417
The real truth is that most of the ice is in glaciers on the land .Antarctica is a land mass,The ice in polar ice on arctic will hardly make any difference,but glaciers in Alaska ,northern Canada Siberia,Iceland and green land will make a lot of difference if they melt all together.That is also the reason that sea level falls when Ice Age comes to Earth.Despite all this Carbon Dioxide talk I believe that Earth is still coming out of ice age and there are so many other factors like Methane gas{Marsh Gas} volcanoes,Sulfur dioxide,and the cycle events in the Sun.It has happened many many times before and will happen again,Let us learn how to live with it.I HOPE IT WILL HELP>DONOT WORRY THE WORLD IS NOT COMING TO AN END,SLEEP TIGHT.
412017
All the water in the atmosphere would cover only about an inch  of the ground (First Link). If the South Pole Melted the sea levels would rise 200 ft, and if Greenland melted they would rise another 20 ft, If the North Pole melted sea levels would not be affected as it already displaces an amount of water equal to it's weight, because it floats (second link). All other water sources are negligible. So basically I wouldn't even get my feet wet in Dallas (around 700-800 ft above sea level).\n\nThe third link provided has a fairly comprehensive look at reasons the flood of Noah's time was impossible (see parts 5 and on). If you want to believe in Noah's flood you have to realize that it would have had to been completely supernatural, and afterwards God (or satan if you will) planted evidence to confuse us.\n\nThank you Jesus my lord and savior.
73569
Migration to warmer regions. Not all of the earth was covered in ice.
252337
The figure I have from a university course was 45m (roughly 80ft).  You can discount any ice floating on the sea, such as the North Polar icecap,the large ice shelves around Antartica and the sea end of glaciers as they havealready displaced the equivilent amount of water already (imagine a glass fullof ice and water, as the ice melts the glass does not overflow).\n\nIf all the ice were to melt the rise would not actually be directly equal to the amount of water resulting due to differences in the densities of salt and freshwater.  Taking the temperature into account the molten ice would be denser than the warmer saltwater so reducing the overall rise.
136745
Good question!  You obviously know that glacial ice is not the same as frozen water in an ice cube tray in your freezer!  (glacial ice is compressed snow)  My initial response was that icebergs float, so yeah, it would float.  Then I thought that seawater is salty, which can cause more dense things to float and doesnt nescessarily provide a good proxy for a cup of drinking water.  Thennnnnn (you like following my train of thought here?) I remembered that icebergs calve into fresh water lakes, too and float.  So my long-winded non-quantitative answer is yes.  :)\n\nI have no idea if there is a difference in rate of melting, but my best guess is that it might take SLIGHTLY longer to melt.
221741
The density of seawater:\n\nhttp://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/EdwardLaValley.shtml\n\nThe density of ice:\n\nhttp://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/122Adensityice.html\n\nThe figures for the world's volume of freshwater are available on a number of sites and in various texts.  Suffice to say that about 97% of the world's water is oceanwater, and some 80-90% of what's left over is frozen in the ice sheets.\n\n''With ice being significantly less dense than water will melted glaciers and ice mass really cause the ocean to rise? And even if that is so, would the volume of ice melting have to be incredibly dramatic to cause even a small rise?''\n\nDefinitely.  Sea ice will not contribute to rising sea level, but ice sequestered in glaciers will, because it was ultimately derived from the ocean.  The volume of melting would not have to be dramatic to make life interesting; if Greenland alone melted, that would raise sea level by some 20 feet.  A much smaller rise over the next century, of one to three feet, would still be disastrous for the most low-lying areas of the globe.
1182172
despite the idea of the earth changing drastically - this is still over millions of years .... in your life time, there will be no ice path from Russia to wherever.\n\nWhatever is going to happen with Mother Earth... well there is the general understanding that it will happen over time, a long time - though the oceans have increased two degrees over the past decade - thus the storms in the US of A have become stronger... but to the extent of total chaos due to Mother Nature - not likely going to happen in our life times .... though very cold winters and droughts, and large amountys of percipitaiton, and warm winters, hot summers, cold summers ... these are a part of the changes that are just normal.\n\nThere are some that say because of the rise in water temperature, that the ocean current may change drastically - making Europ very cold, and America very hot... some say there is already a 30% reduction in water that is in the current - bringing cold water to the warmer zones and vise versa - this caused by fossil fuel emmissions - in which case, yes this could be a very fast change, but this is man, not mother nature's doing.  Storms in America would then be ten times as strong, and climate in Europ - prevent a lot of crops from growing... yes this would be chaos, but not the chaos that you think of concerning an ice age.
672515
Its not really important.\n\nThey're saying that someday the earth could heat up enough to melt the north and south poles and burry us all in water.  The sea is currently rising at a rate of like a half inch each year.  However, climet changes all of the time and so the greenhouse effect isn't necessarily a concern.
1067115
no thats wrong. you want to look up the Milankovitch theroy of excentricity of orbits. he said it goes in 40,000 to 100,000 year shifts between 22.5 and 24 degrees.  If the previous answer is right we would have a global ice age every 6 months.  and it would be NOTHING like winter in the N.Hemisphere.  sea levels globallly would rise and fall by hundreds of meters every 6 months. basically we would be dead.
1008731
Well your intuition here is correct. Just as ice cubes melting in water will not cause the glass to overflow, neither will metling icebergs (I assume you meant icebergs).\n\nBut as someone here pointed out, not all of the stored ice is floating about in the oceans, a lot of it is on land.When that ice melts and runs off into the oceans, the levels will rise.
220230
You wouldn't. It would melt as it neared the center of the Earth. Assuming you are asking the hypothetical question, it would go to the middle of the earth and stay there...that is where gravity pulls from.