If you fill a glass with ice cubes and then add water to the brim; what happens when the ice melts?
“If you fill a glass with ice cubes and then add water to the brim; what happens when the ice melts?”
We actually had an interesting discussion on that here. It turns out that, due to the thermal expansion of water, it depends on the temperature of the room the glass is in. If you measure it right after the ice melts, the water at 32 degrees is a little below the rim because the ice takes up a slightly larger volume than the water it melts into. If the glass is in a very hot room, however, the thermal expansion of water will cause it to overflow the glass.
There are some really good engineers and chemists on FR.
Nothing, but this “ice cube” is sitting on land, not floating in the water.
What I object to is that we’ve had about one such scare story per day for a few years now. Someday one of them is going to pan out, but no one will be prepared because by then we’ll all be ignoring the news. They’ve cried wolf way too many times already.
This is a glacier. It’s on land. It isn’t currently displacing water.
IIRC - This ice is on land and would then melt into the sea.
Or so they say.
Nuttin’. Ice contains more air than liquid water does. That’s why it floats. As ice melts, that air is released into the atmosphere. Technically, glaciers are not even pure ice. They are compressed snow. So they contain even more air than ice does. Melting glaciers do not have a one for one effect on sea levels.
But don’t forget, most of the glaciers in Antarctica are actually sitting on a LAND mass.
Your experiment only holds true when the ice is sitting in the water already.
I still think the article is full of BULL EXCREMENT, didn’t see any real reason the glacier should just all of a sudden let go.