by: Kerry Lippold Jr.
Climate change has been a pressing issue which has grown in popularity throughout the past decade. Occurring primarily in politics, discussions grow quite heated when considering the well-being of our planet and the best course of action to preserve it.
I recently watched a video about the state of our sea level and how it relates to the melting of large bodies of ice and climate change. This was described by someone who was not identified and sparked my curiosity as to how much politician hearsay is backed by the science and research of trained professionals with as little bias as possible. Typically, politicians seem to promote ideas for a campaign. However, scientists’ declarations are usually untampered by views of the public eye.
The video starts by claiming their demonstration shows that melting ice in water, glaciers for example, does not cause the water level to rise. They begin by showing a broken container once full of water that has since been frozen. This demonstrates that ice is less dense than water and expands as it becomes a solid. Anyone who has placed a drink in the freezer too long will see a similar result but hopefully without breaking the can or bottle. Next, the block of ice is placed into a bowl filled to the brim with water. Once everything has settled, they allow the ice to melt and they’re able to observe the water level remains unchanged.
Does this prove that the melting of ice doesn’t cause rising sea levels on earth? In my opinion, not quite.
Everything in the video is correct in concept, but it ignores other conditions that exist on earth like that the earth moves or that the temperature of the water itself changes and expands. Much like political statements, their claims may or may not be entirely correct but for the wrong reasons.
You could say the whole picture has yet to be painted. First and foremost, the earth is not a bowl, nor does it act like one. If you’ve taken any introductory physics course or contemplated the gravity of our universe, you can see that gravity exists on anything with mass. There are forces between people, cups of coffee, and even your hand to your phone which may not be the best explanation as to why its always in your hand. The reason you don’t notice these forces is because of how small they are compared to the gravitational pull of the earth.
When you see the ocean, it looks flat, but it’s far from it. Water is pulled toward the “center” of the earth but since the earth’s mass isn’t evenly distributed, neither is the sea level. Sea level changes depending where you are on earth and this is greatly affected by large masses of ice.
“Nearly 10 percent of land is covered by glacial ice and the sea level would rise nearly 230 feet worldwide if all this ice melted.”
Water is attracted to large masses like Antarctica and as the continent continues to lose mass due to melting, the sea level decreases there and increases towards other massive areas like North America. Another issue the video didn’t address is the amount of ice that is currently on land and will eventually runoff into the ocean. According to the National Snow & Ice Data Center, nearly 10 percent of land is covered by glacial ice and the sea level would rise nearly 230 feet worldwide if all this ice melted.
Additionally, the sea moves unlike still water in a bowl. I observed another discussion with Dr. Andrea Dutton, an Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Florida, that looked at why the sea level of New York City is rising nearly 1.5 times as fast as the global average. In this, they talked about the Gulf Stream current and how it is being backed up by the melted ice water (cool water) which enters the Atlantic near Greenland. This causes a build-up of water on our coast and further causes sea levels to rise with all the previously mentioned reasons.
So, does the melting of ice cause water levels to rise? In a static bowl full of ice water at a constant external temperature, no it does not. On earth, yes it does.
