Will Ice Melting at the North or South Poles Cause Sea Level

[Pianoukulelecello]

Hello!
I need some help with a Physical science project I have to do with my lab partner. We are very stumped on a couple questions. This is obviously an experiment based off of your "Polar Puzzle: Will Ice Melting at the North or South Poles Cause Sea Levels to Rise?"

1) Why would the sea level rise? Because of Global Warming or the greenhouse effect? The background didn't shine a whole lot of light on it. We don't believe in global warming.
2) How would this effect the world or other people? Would the melting of the south or north pole would cause the salinity of the ocean and temperature of the ocean near the melting to drop. This would affect weather, climate, sea and plant life along the coasts?

These are just topics not covered in your background. Thanks for all the help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[deleted-71603]

Hello. This is certainly an interesting and important topic to study.

Why would the sea level rise? There are a couple of theories out there.
1. As the atmospheric temperature rises (as evidence has shown) over time, the sea temperature rises, causing it to expand.
2. Melting ice caps cause the sea level to rise

How would this affect the world and other people? This is almost an endless list. Rising sea levels (and rivers) will push populations back from the coastline and has even caused small low-lying islands to disappear. It affects rainfall. It will change or eliminate food sources as different species must try to adapt to the changing environment.

There are plenty of websites dedicated to this topic. Many provide scientific findings to help you understand if and how quickly this is happening. A simple Google search of your questions above will provide numerous websites, like National Geographic, EPA, and NOAA (to name a few).

As a scientist, it is important to set your personal feelings aside (in this case, whether you believe in global warming or not) and base your experiment on empirical data. Data you will find in your research and through the course of your experiment.

Good luck, and feel free to write back if you have more questions.

[Pianoukulelecello]

Thank you! This helped lots! Thanks for you information and time!
~M~

[deleted-71603]

You're welcome. Good luck, and have fun!

[Pianoukulelecello]

Sorry! It's me again.
My project is due this Thursday and I'm still stumped on why the South Pole rose more than the North Pole. I'm pretty sure the South pole would be more effected by ice melting than the North Pole because I did this experiment in several trials.
For the North Pole cup, we had to fill a big enough container/cup one-half to two-thirds full of water and mark the water line on the container. Then you place two ice cubes in it.
For the South Pole cup, we had to drop a cup of play-dough into another container and add one-fourth of water to the side or the play-dough and add two ice cubes on top of the dough.
The websites said that for the North Pole: the water represents the ocean, the ice cubes represent the ice caps. For the South Pole: the water represents the ocean, the play dough represents Antarctica and the ice is the ice sheets.

We are still confused about how the South Pole rose more. Does the land affect the ice melting? Or are there any resources that cover this topic?

Thank you so much for all the help! It's very useful!

[deleted-71603]

Hello. Congratulations on completing your experiment! I hope you guys had fun.

You are correct in this:

• The North Pole is all ice sheets (no land mass). In your experiment, the ice cubes represent the ice sheets.
  
  The South Pole is located on Antarctica, a giant land mass covered in snow and ice. The play-dough represents Antarctica, and the ice cubes represent the ice covering Anarctica.

What happened in your North Pole cup? I'm guessing the water level did not rise? Do a little research on the properties of ice in it's frozen and liquid form. In order to float, ice must displace enough water to support is weight. It displaces the same volume of water that exists in the ice cube. As the ice melts, it adds the same volume of water that was previously displaced. Therefore, the level of the water does not change. More here:
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae389.cfm

In the South Pole Cup, I'm guessing the water level rose? In this case, the ice is on the land mass; and it initially is not displacing any water, as it did in the North Pole cup. Therefore, as the ice cubes melted, it added water volume to the already existing water level. The melting ice cubes represent melting ice on the continent of Antarctica. What did your research tell you about if and how fast this is occurring?

I hope this answers your questions. Certainly write back if you still have questions. Good luck!

[Pianoukulelecello]

Dear Ms. Deana,
Thank you!
At the end when all the ice has melted, we had to measure how much the water rose in millimeters from the marked cup. The North Pole only rose 2mm on average and the South Pole cup rose 4.67 mm on average. We did three cups per pole to find the average and to eliminate experimental error. The North Pole cup did rise a little bit, but the South Pole cup doubled the amount.

The website and information helped lots and are coming to an end to our project! We didn't get to the part to see how this is occurring, but how it might affect people and the environment. That is a good thought though to conclude!

Thanks much!

[deleted-71603]

Great! I'm glad you did the experiment more than once and calculated the average. Good luck with writing up your conclusions!