If The Ice Caps Melt...

**Krieglord** · August 22, 2012, 08:09 PM

If the ice caps melt will the great lakes be effected at all?

I live in London basically in the middle of 2 great lakes and Toronto as well as many US cities are along the lakes will these rise?

**boofhead** · August 22, 2012, 08:28 PM

Yes. Everywhere in the world would be somehow affected. Although your lakes might actually lose water due to higher temps.

**Krieglord** · August 22, 2012, 08:30 PM

Is it possible for something like this to happen?

**Ciciro** · August 24, 2012, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Krieglord

Is it possible for something like this to happen?

Looks like ill soon have beach front property.

**The Useless Member** · August 31, 2012, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by Krieglord

Is it possible for something like this to happen?

Poor Mexico and Canada.

The US loses a minimal amount of land.

**boofhead** · August 22, 2012, 08:46 PM

Of course it is. The question is how are your lakes fed? And what will higher temps do to them?

Here's a map of a deglaciated world with sea level rises of 66 metres (or so the guy says):

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/spac...rthicefree.jpg

Your lakes seem okay here?

**hellheaven1987** · August 22, 2012, 09:46 PM

Live in Midwest, not my problem.

**Sphere** · August 24, 2012, 09:00 AM

I live in London basically in the middle of 2 great lakes and Toronto as well as many US cities are along the lakes will these rise?

Won't matter to you. In ten years, you'll either have committed suicide or moved somewhere else.

Anyways ...

This is the great lakes watershed...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

These are the relevant elevations ...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

As even lake Ontario is 240+ ft above sea level, ~2-6 ft of sea level rise will not be noticed. The amount of rain in the watershed is far more important to lake levels.

**Phier** · August 24, 2012, 09:33 AM

And why are we worried about the ice caps melting?

**Blau&Gruen** · August 24, 2012, 11:42 AM

Because the loss of ice is said to be below long-year middle values indicating that the losses of the last Winters have not been sufficiently been compensated.

**Phier** · August 24, 2012, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by Blau&Gruen

Because the loss of ice is said to be below long-year middle values indicating that the losses of the last Winters have not been sufficiently been compensated.

The ice caps are not melting away. Asking "what would happen if the ice caps melted" is like asking what would happen if an asteroid hit, only far less plausible.

**Sphere** · August 24, 2012, 09:54 PM

I thought you were on board with climate change, just not man made climate change.

In any event, 2012 is likely to be the largest summer melt of sea ice in recorded history. We might start seeing an ice free arctic ocean during the summer months, and a navigable year round, within our life time. Russia the Nordic countries and Canada are actually betting on it.

However, sea ice is irrelevant to sea level rise. Your glass doesn't overflow when the ice in it melts, and the same is true of the ocean. Only the ice stored on the ice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica have the potential to raise sea levels. The complete melting of those is a much longer term prospect, hundreds if not thousands of years off even if we enter a period of warming.

**Phier** · August 25, 2012, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by Sphere

I thought you were on board with climate change, just not man made climate change.

In any event, 2012 is likely to be the largest summer melt of sea ice in recorded history. We might start seeing an ice free arctic ocean during the summer months, and a navigable year round, within our life time. Russia the Nordic countries and Canada are actually betting on it.

However, sea ice is irrelevant to sea level rise. Your glass doesn't overflow when the ice in it melts, and the same is true of the ocean. Only the ice stored on the ice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica have the potential to raise sea levels. The complete melting of those is a much longer term prospect, hundreds if not thousands of years off even if we enter a period of warming.

Just like 1950 all over again. Anyways as you said irrelevant.

**Hazelnut** · August 25, 2012, 06:07 AM

Not sure how accurate this map is but here you go http://flood.firetree.net/
If the sea rises 60 meters I get sea on 3 sides of my house. So come on global warming.

**Aanker** · August 25, 2012, 06:39 AM

Sea level variations are a natural part of the history of Earth and the evolution of life on the planet. More concerning should be the potential release of the methane stored at the bottom of the ocean, which if released could have far more distressing consequences.

That is not to say that I would like to walk around my neighbourhood in rubber boots and take the boat to reach the town center but, hey, such are our times.

This reminds me:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**visser300** · August 25, 2012, 08:19 AM

Originally Posted by hellheaven1987

Live in Midwest, not my problem.

Singapore disappears. That's your problem

**brandbll** · August 25, 2012, 08:57 AM

We won't have to worry. All the idiots out west are running out of water and soon they'll come like a pack of zombies trying to take ours(they already have). The surrounding states and provinces are already hunkering down and trying to prepare for the inevitable. This isn't too say they are exactly great role models themselves. Global warming is just a political fad. We're breeding like rabbits and your ice caps melting aren't gonna mean

once we've finished raping our fresh water resources.

**LSJ** · August 25, 2012, 12:12 PM

The Great Lakes won't flood like some people's pictures around the net suggest. They are above sea level, with the lowest lake, Ontario, still an average of 74 metres above sea level.Then you also have to include the possible decrease in rainfall in the Great Lakes region, which will lower the water level.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

For the Great Lakes to flood, the sea level would need to rise more than 74 metres plus the difference between current lake depth and the decreased depth from climate change. The highest estimates of glacier melting only suggest an increase of a few metres.

So, if the Great Lakes flood, it will be because someone nuked Antarctica and Greenland with Tsar bombs.

Realistically though, only the maritimes will be affected by sea level rises over the next 100 years. In Canada, that is. The US, with most of its pops on lowlands on the east and west coasts, will be screwed, because they'll have to move their metropolises inland.

**Vizsla** · August 28, 2012, 08:44 AM

Satellite data agree that the rate of sea level rise is decreasing. The European satellite data actually shows no net change in sea level for the last 8 years.
The IPCC predicts a 1m rise in sea level by the year 2100. Even if the current rate of (very minor) sea level rise stops decreasing and continues at the same rate, 1.6mm per year, it will take over 600 years to rise 1m.
So don’t worry about getting your toes wet.
What’s really weird is that despite a lack of serious sea level rise CO2 levels are at an all time high and the ice caps are supposedly melting.

http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/new...ges/index.html