Someone with more math skills can take it from here and figure out what happens if you spread this volume of ice/water over the surface of the ocean :-)
Sources:
149,000,000 km2 earth area & 361,000,000 km2 water area http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml
510,000,000 km2 Total surface http://www.universetoday.com/25756/surface-area-of-the-earth/
2,166,000 km2 Surface of Greenland http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_land_area_of_Greenland
The Greenland Ice Sheet (Kalaallisut: Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometers (660,235 sq mi), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland." "The thickness is generally more than 2 km (1.24 mi) (see picture) and over 3 km (1.86 mi) at its thickest point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
Okay, I'm posting to myself now because I can't leave this alone, but my basic calculations (with help from Google to remember and find various conversions) says that the volume of the Greenland ice sheet would spread-out, at 23" high (or 0.6m) and cover 8,800,000,000 square meters. Surface of the ocean: 361,000,000,000 sq meters.
Can you say "drop in the bucket" ;-)
Actually, using gross approximations and your numbers, 23 feet isn’t far off. I see how the greenies made the computation. I did not compensate for the fact that ice is less dense than liquid water and came up with about 30 feet.
I was not trying to deal with the factual accuracy of the statement (as pertains to the quantity of ice), which - the statement - was a quote from the article.
I was pointing out the unscientific assumption that that ice melting from climate change would raise the sea levels by an amount (any amount) said to be equal to the water that ice represents.
No matter what is the factually correct amount of ice/water on Greenland, climate change IS NOT going to melt it all at once, send it into the sea all at once.
It will be a gradual process. The amount it adds will also add to global evaporation from the seas, global cloud formation, global precipitation. Its waters will, through the total dynamic of the oceans’ role in the climate system, evaporate and wind up in clouds, from clouds it will wind up in rain over land as well as seas; from rain it will wind up in lakes and in ground water as deep as humans dig wells - in addition to adding to SOME component of the total sea level.
That component - that may add to sea levels, due to climate change, will never be the sum total of the ice/water on Greenland.
For that to happen, it would have to very suddenly and completely melt all at once, due to some catastrophe; not due to the gradual melting that may occur during any period of climate change. In a period of slow melting it will add to all forms of water across the earth - many land bound as well, not just the “sea level”.
How much? It cannot be calculated. The general climate and actual weather variables that a gradual melting will encounter cannot be accurately predicted. Therefore, where all throughout the earth all the ice/water will wind up also CANNOT be predicted.
What is scientifically clear is it will NOT, all of it (no matter what that amount is), simply add to sea levels.