In: Economics
Ice-Melt versus Land-Ice Melt-Assignment for Climate Change Lectures
Purpose: To determine which form (or both) of Ice-melt contributes to sea-level rise.
Instruction: PART I-Sea-Ice Demo -Place a glass half filled with water on your table. Add Ice and record the water level on your glass with a sharpie marker. Wait for the ice to melt. Did the water level in the glass change? Is the water level still at the level of the sharpie marking? Why? What are the implications for sea-level rise with melting of sea-ice? Will it increase sea-level rise? Why?
PART II – Land-Ice Demo: Place a glass half filled with
water on your table. Record the water level on your glass with a
sharpie marker. Add ice and wait for the ice to melt. Did the water
level in the glass change? Why? What are the implications for
sea-level rise with melting of Land-ice? Will it increase sea-level
rise? Why?
Part 1: in the experiment to check sea ice demo. The water level does not change
Part 2: in the experiment to check the land ice demo. The water level rises comparatively very high.
Now it's necessary to understand whether sea ice melt or land ice melt casues the sea level to rise. Both the warning about melting is concerning to the environment. But the melting of ice sheets on the land contribute more to the rising sea level which is supported by the above experiment. Land ice which contains glaciers, ice sheets is found in Antarctica and Greenland. The blocks of ice in the land are melting and this water is flowing rapidly into the oceans. This increases the volume of water. Which means that it increases or rises the sea well considerably. Whereas this is not the case for sea ice melt. The impact is less as it is already floating in the ocean. Which doesn't not rise the sea level. When the sea level rises rapidly, the implications being a small increase in sea level rise has harmful effects on coastal habitat farther inland. It causses destructive erosion, wetland flooding, agricultural soil contamination by salt, loss of habitat etc. Hence control climate changes to reduce the rising sea level is the need of the hour.