If ALL polar ice melted, how much rise in sea level?

[Magnetic]

If all the ice at the north and south poles melted today, how much would that raise sea levels around the world?

Thanks for your replies.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

If all the ice at the north and south poles melted today, how much would that raise sea levels around the world?

Thanks for your replies. :)

If everything melted, the sea level rise would be around 68.8 meters. Which is only a bit over 223 feet.*

(* - Certainly not enough to drown us all, but more than enough to make most coastal cities and communities cease to exist.)

[Pablo Sanchez]

(* - Certainly not enough to drown us all, but more than enough to make most coastal cities and communities cease to exist.)

Especially troubling since most major cities (NYC, LA, Rio, London, Shanghai, Mumbai, and so forth) are located in the direct path of the flood..

[Sriad]

All numbers in this post are approximate to some non-huge degree.

33 million cubic kilometers of ice on Earth, of which about 30 million are not already displacing water.

Ice is 8% less dense than water; the Earth's non-floating ice has a volume of 27.6 million cubic kilometers.

The world's oceans have a surface area of ~361.4 million sq km; if we dropped 27.6 million kilometers of extra water in 'em they would rise by .0763 km (76.3 meters, 250 feet), not accounting for the extra area they would spread out to cover, being 250 feet higher. Probably around 200 after that.

There would be plenty of climaticly devestating effects too (you think El Nino's bad? el oh el. [and there would need to be a lot of change in the first place to melt the south pole's ice]) but that's not what you asked.

[Magnetic]

Thanks for the responses.

[Jaepheth]

If this were to happen, would existing coastal cities w/ sky scrapers be able to survive as shallow sea cities if the existing buildings were reinforced on the lower floors to survive the water pressure? Or are the foundations too weak to survive tides, bouancy forces, etc.?

[Lisa]

jaeptheth: theres more then just the foundations to consider... power and communication lines would short out, most buildings heat centers are in the basement.... you can immagine the cost in retrofitting all that.

[Darth Raptor]

Does anyone know of any good world maps that reflect the hypothetical rise in sea level? I'd love to know what the world will look like post-ice cap.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

If this were to happen, would existing coastal cities w/ sky scrapers be able to survive as shallow sea cities if the existing buildings were reinforced on the lower floors to survive the water pressure? Or are the foundations too weak to survive tides, bouancy forces, etc.?

No. The cost of retrofitting a skyscraper to be waterproof would be prohibitive, not to mention the pounding of wave action from increasingly prevalent and intense storm systems and the corrosive effects of saltwater would go a long way to eventually destroy these structures.

What is more likely to happen is that city planners will likely build a series of sea-walls to counteract near-future rises in sea-level. (A sea-level rise that catastrophic will take a couple of centuries to happen.) A wall to hold back a given level of flooding. When sea level rises enough to make the overtopping of that sea-wall more and more likely, they'll likely demolish the buildings at the lowest elevation, use the rubble and dredged sediments to raise the level of the land immediately behind the sea-walll. New construction would probably go up atop the rubble of the old, at least until rising sea-levels force the city to retreat behind new sea-walls built on higher land, and the cycle will continue . . . at least as long as large numbers of people persist in living and working in these cities.

Eventually, you'd get to a point where one of two things happen. One, the population of the city will dwindle enough and the cost of fortifying it against the encroaching will be seen as economically infeasible and the sea will consume the ruins of the city. The second is that the sea-level will stop rising before that point is reached for a given city. At which point, they become like New Orleans is nowadays (though in almost any rising sea-level scenario, New Orleans itself would be one of the first cities to be abandoned to the rising sea.)

[bdh]

Does anyone know of any good world maps that reflect the hypothetical rise in sea level? I'd love to know what the world will look like post-ice cap.

This is hardly accurate, but this is assuming that every elevation below 70 meters is now under water(near the ocean or not). Here is an image of the United States Eastern Sea board.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a323/ ... aboard.jpg

I wouldn't use it as an accurate source. I generated it myself using simple GOTP03 elevation maps. I've probably made some sort of error though.

[Broomstick]

(* - Certainly not enough to drown us all, but more than enough to make most coastal cities and communities cease to exist.)

Especially troubling since most major cities (NYC, LA, Rio, London, Shanghai, Mumbai, and so forth) are located in the direct path of the flood..

Although exceptions like Chicago (500+ feet MSL) might well become the major urban centers of their nations.