If in those geological periods when there was no sea ice, the oceans covered most of the USA and Western Europe, would they cover them again, today, if the sea ice disappeared? (Or, is the elevation of continents different, or Earth's water volume?)
CSIRO (pronounced by Aussies as Syro) has a very good site http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_proj_longer.html and this is just plain fun to play with http://flood.firetree.net/ Same with this one http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Special:SeaLevel Thinks - Gee if the sea level rises too much New Zealand looks like it will be buggered
Sea ice will not raise the ocean levels at all because the ice is already iin the water. When the ice on land melts and flows into the ocean we will have a rash of problems.
Oops, thanks to both of you for the correction, I meant polar ice caps, not only sea ice. This is sooo interesting, now I will go and play with the websites you gave. I also have a side question. Will a total ice meltdown cause the extinction of any low-land species? Or will it only reduce their environmental square-mileage but not kill them off totally?
To be buggered implies a Bugger(er) .Or many . Presumably you are confirming that the Ozzers are innately sodomites .
Wow the links are really great! I am wondering though, is that correct that if all ice melts, including Antarctica, then the sea level will be 500+ meters higher? (I am guessing that this would be in line with finding water animal fossils in the middle of the continents of North America and Eurasia, from the Jurassic period.)
From memory the top level will be around 70 meters - the thing about sitting on top of the Himalayas in boats is a real Hollywood hoot! If we get to total meltdown of the poles there will be no Bangladesh, No New York or Florida and most Pacific Islands will be gone - but that will not be the real issue, we will also have a mass extinction of the ocean life as the dissolved CO@ causes coral die back in unprecedented numbers (and coral only lives at certain depths and is too slow growing to adapt) We will also have mass extinction in the biosphere of Earth The Crocs might survive though........
It is not just the melting of the ice on land that causes a rise in sea levels. Thermal expansion of the water is responsible for about 25% of sea level rise. source
Bowerbird and MannieD, I think we are missing an element of the picture. The top-out of 70 meters is important, plus the extra 25 % allows us to close a little of the gap. But can we speculate why in the past oceans covered central Australia, central North America, and central Europe? For this to be repeated, we will need not 70 but ~700 meters rise. Can you think of another factor? I speculate that when the Atlantic Ocean started to form as a result of the (Jurassic?) Europe-NorthAmerica split-apart, the new gaping crack in the Earth's crust freed up a LOT of super-heated water from the Earth's mantle to add to the water volume of the Oceans, before the Atlantic Oceanic crust formed. Is this reasonable, in your opinions? I still have the problem of where the water went to disappear then. Or, is there something wrong with the actual modern day elevation of the non-mountainous parts of the continents lately? Has anyone ever asked these questions? Is the Earth's water mass a constant? What do you think?
Australia used to have an Inland Sea - Lake Eyre is the final remnant of that Sea. But that was when the land itself was lower and the whole contour of the continent was different - for a start we were attached to Antarctica http://www.abc.net.au/science/ozfossil/ageofreptiles/eromanga/default.htm
You would have to study the "lay of the land" to see how far the ocean would travel inland. One good guess would be finding out how far an area is above sea level. I think I am a little over 700 feet. Then you would have to figure how far the water would travel inland...if there is a pathway for the water to follow. Death Valley is below sea level and it is very dry. If you live 100 feet from the shoreline and you are 2 feet above sea level...and the water rises 3 feet your feet get wet.
What time period are yo talkng about? Arkansas' average elevation is 16m. Hungary's lowest elevation is 80m above sea level. I do not know where you why you think 700m elevation is necessary to flood central Europe and central NA.
This is the most puzzling of all. How does the elevation of a non-mountainous continental region change, such as central Australia? (Sorry if I am asking too many stupid questions.)
Techtonic plate movement causes land to rise and fall. The Himmalayas (spelling?) are caused by India colliding with Asia. You could I guess... have magma from the earths interior push the land up. I am not a geologist. You may want to do some research on it.
There really are few stupid questions if they are coming from a genuine need to know - I only get short tempered with those who are pretending not to know to set me up for some kind of AH HA! moment to try and prove some imbecilic point about creationism or the like There are a lot of concepts underpinning this that you will need to wrap your head around but one of the central concepts is a thing called "plate Tectonics" Obviously Australia is no longer attached to Antarctica (except in a political 50% of it is ours way) so something made the continent of Australia move north or rather the continent of Australia rode something northwards. That something is a continental plate - see Earth is like a drying mud puddle with this squishy interior covered by hard plates The Australian plate is moving north and East while the American plate is moving south and west but don't worry it will be millions of years before we bump into each other. Point is - where those plate boundaries either compress or stretch we get mountains (fold mountains) and deep trenches But sometimes all that happens is a slow rising or falling of the surface in that area
Not a stupid question. Bowerbird has a good posting, I'm just going to rephrase it a bit. The surface of the planet is not a solid surface, like a billard ball. It actually is composed of separate pieces called tectonic plates that are floating on the non-solid core of the planet. These plates move around, slowly of course, sometimes squeezing each other, other times pulling apart. The stresses that build up at the plate contact points resulting from the plate movement are responsible for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and reality TV shows. If two plates continually push against each other for a long time, a low energy resolution of the stress buildup is a folding of the surface creating mountains. An effect you can duplicate by pushing on a tablecloth on a table. And naturally, if alot of land is pushed up to create a mountain range, there is a equal amount of surface area that must subside. There are 52 tectonic plates on Earth. 14 are considered major and 38 are minor. Among the major plates, there is one for every continent, except that there is a Eurasian Plate rather than a European or Asian plate. Major plates not named directly after continents include the Arabian Plate, the Caribbean Plate, and the Juan de Fuca Plate in the Pacific Northwest. In addition, there is a Pacific Plate containing that ocean. There is no Atlantic plate, because the Atlantic Ocean is carried on the South American and African Plates.
well there's something I never thought of...I lived in the part of north america where an inland sea once stood 400 million years ago...the city where I lived is now 480 meters above sea level, the deposits from the sea are now being mined 1,000-1,300 meters below...I never gave it any thought before but I suppose the rise in elevation came from a combination of plate tectonics and numerous Ice Age glacial deposits...I'll need to follow this up with my bro-in-law the geologist...
millions of years! I was worried for moment I was thinking "well, there goes the neighbourhood the Ozzies are moving in next door"...
Yeah! And here was I hoping for cheaper air fares - always wanted to see that famous Canadian Yellow Snow!!
Yup. There's also the fact that sea ice is only primarily underwater. Some of it is above the surface, and there's a lot of it, so if it all melted the result wouldn't be trivial. More importantly, water is most dense at 4 degrees C. Any colder and it takes up more space. Any warmer, same thing. The areas reclaimed and covered by water will be relatively shallow compared to the deep ocean. Most of them will have an air temperature of a lot more than 4 degrees, so the water won't take long to catch up. The whole thing snowballs (for want of a much warmer term.) This has happened before, and even if every worst case climate prediction is completely wrong it will happen again, eventually. Any idea what such a catastrophic rise will do to freshwater? Not just lakes, but the water table?
Granny wonderin' what dey gonna do when alla Australia under water?... Rising seas create crisis for Australias beachfront Mon, Jul 23, 2012 - When Elaine Pearce left Sydney for the seaside peace of Old Bar 12 years ago she was assured her new house was a solid investment, with a centurys worth of frontage to guard against erosion.
