# If all the ice and snow all over the planet melts; where will the new coastline be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643 "2009-08-25T16:15:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CT\_Damsel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CT\_Damsel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CT_Damsel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/1 "2009-08-25T16:15:01Z")
Please this is not a debate about global warming. I just want to know if everything melted and the level of the sea rose will my house still be here? Does anyone know where I could find a map of what the U.S. would look like (just curious if I would have ocean-front property.) Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/2 "2009-08-25T16:24:16Z")
I’ve seen mugs that have the modern coastline on them, and when you fill them with hot liquid it turns into the global warming coastline. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/3 "2009-08-25T16:25:14Z")
I’ve only done a cursory search, but I found [this page](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/global_flooding.htm): > [@](#): > > The 100 M flooding represents a best estimate of total melt down of all glacial ice. This is, unfortunately, a very credible scenario because of human intervention in the process, making this coming melt larger than past “ice age” warm periods which left beach records in the 60 M - 75 M range. It has been increased from earlier estimates (75 M) to include Permafrost (10 M) which was forgotten in earlier work and the greater ice content of Greenland (12 M) that we now know exists from deep core samples and extensive deep penetrating radar data work, and slightly increased Antarctic water storage estimates. (8M). > > All of these have also been corrected NOT to include the Glacial water already below sea level. There is a large quantity of glacial ice below sea level in both Greenland and Antarctica sheets. That will not contribute to sea level rise. Only ice above sea level “bench mark” has been used in the rise calculations. If we (in my opinion erroneously) used that we would get 120 M rise. I tend to worry about that as geological sea level beach marks are found at that 120 M level in the Paleocene. The results are similar enough for 100 M and 120 M that the 100 M still tells the catastrophic tale which is intended, and even 60 meters ( almost certainly an underestimate) is disastrous enough to cause alarm. [Here are some maps](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/world_100_m.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/4 "2009-08-25T16:50:35Z")
The article does not include the effect of the land rising as ice melts. For example, if Antarctica lost all its ice, it would appear first as an archipelago of islands. However, with the loss of the weight of the ice pack, the land mass itself would start to rise gradually. There would be two effects - to drain more land-based melt water into the oceans, and to compress the world ocean into a slightly smaller space. The same would apply to Greenland, and to a lesser extent to other ice covered land masses. The effect was seen after previous ice ages - ancient beaches can be found miles inland as a result. These effects would result in an even higher water level, although I assume the land rise would take millennia to occur. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/5 "2009-08-25T17:13:27Z")
> [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](#): > > The article does not include the effect of the land rising as ice melts. > > For example, if Antarctica lost all its ice, it would appear first as an archipelago of islands. However, with the loss of the weight of the ice pack, the land mass itself would start to rise gradually. Unless there are tectonic forces at work, I don’t think this is true. Why would the land rises if the ice melts? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/6 "2009-08-25T17:18:48Z")
Because it’ not being depressed by the weight of the ice. Land rise is happening today, most visibly in Scandinavia ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/7 "2009-08-25T17:26:18Z")
I’m not at my normal desk, so pardon my commenting from memory. In brief, the land masses of the earth float on liquid rock. That is what makes the tectonic plates move around, forming and reforming continents etc. Imagine a piece of wood is floating on water, and it has a large chunk of ice sitting on it. The wood will settle a little lower in the water because of the weight of the ice. If the ice melts or is removed from the piece of wood, it will float higher in the water. The effect will be similar when you remove a large weight of ice from a tectonic plate - except that the plate will rise slowly, over millennia, not suddenly like the wood. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/8 "2009-08-25T17:32:45Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Because it’ not being depressed by the weight of the ice. Land rise is happening today, most visibly in Scandinavia Is that a result of ice melting, or tectonic subduction and uplift? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/9 "2009-08-25T17:51:53Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Because it’ not being depressed by the weight of the ice. Land rise is happening today, most visibly in Scandinavia Also, IIRC, in and around Hudsons Bay. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/10 "2009-08-25T18:07:58Z")
[Isostatic Rebound](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostatic_rebound) is the term. In Scandinavia there is a measured peak rate of 11mm/year. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/11 "2009-08-25T18:20:08Z")
Ice melt volume is not the entire answer, nor is isostic rebound (The land rising) from the release of overburden. The volume of the worlds water would increase as temperature increases. That fact is further complicated by the as yet not adequately described result in not cooling the water to four degrees centigrade (and mixing in fresh water). The ocean could, in the geologically short term of a mere 50000 years become stratified by thermoclines, and mixing might effectively cease. (Although that too is subject to misinterpretation, as it turns out that life itself mixes the oceans on an order of magnitude nearly similar to that of existing vertical current exchanges) As in all the questions about climate, much less the interaction of climate and geology, the answer is that we have very little information on the actual nature of the current climate system, and even less about the dynamics of geology. In the short term, we are strongly affecting climate. Short term for climate is 1000 to 10,000 years. Our climate records are inferential and anecdotal, and the century of instrument data we have is entirely limited to the northern hemisphere, until very recently. We could easily compare our knowledge of climate compared to the needed knowledge for accurate prediction to the knowledge of shepherds in the first millennium and computing trajectories of comets. But, even if we knew, politics is much more predictable. Those who have the power to affect the process will do nothing. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/12 "2009-08-25T18:29:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I’ve only done a cursory search, but I found [this page](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/global_flooding.htm): > > [Here are some maps](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/world_100_m.htm). Yikes! Goodbye Cuba, Florida and most of the American Southeast. Most of Australia split into two islands. Hardly anything left of the U.K. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/13 "2009-08-25T18:33:39Z")
So, I’m gonna rewrite the ad for my house that is on the market (in western PA) to include, “Future Ocean View”. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/14 "2009-08-25T18:38:11Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Yikes! Goodbye Cuba, Florida and most of the American Southeast. Most of Australia split into two islands. Hardly anything left of the U.K. :eek: Except for Scotland. Apparently they’re so tight even rising sea levels can’t waterlog them… ---
**Author:** ![legalsnugs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@legalsnugs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legalsnugs)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/15 "2009-08-25T18:43:34Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I’ve only done a cursory search, but I found [this page](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/global_flooding.htm): > > [Here are some maps](http://www.nexialinstitute.com/world_100_m.htm). The maps are pretty interesting, but I see no time estimates. Anyone have a projected timeline for total ice melt? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/16 "2009-08-25T18:51:23Z")
I’d be a little distrustful of those maps. The map of the hundred-metre rise has Lake Superior underwater, yet Wikipedia [says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_superior) its surface is at 180 metres above present sea level. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/17 "2009-08-25T18:52:44Z")
Just to confuse the issue, a new study finds that an increase in CO2 will result in a [net increase in the thickness of the ice sheets](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2003/9/greenland-or-whiteland)in both Antarctica and Greenland: > [@](#): > > This surprising result was published earlier this year in the _Journal of Geophysical Research_. Martin Wild, Pierluigi Calanca, Simon C. Scherrer and Atsumu Ohmura of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich evaluated the changes to the Greenland ice sheet that would ensue in a world where the carbon dioxide concentration had doubled. (Unless current trends abate, we’ll reach this level in about 70 years.) As with several other modeling efforts of this sort, they found that the accumulation of snow and ice will increase over Antarctica. The reason is simply that the warming of the nearby ocean puts more moisture in the atmosphere, which then falls as snow over land. Melting over that frigid continent should remain negligible, even with doubled CO2. > > … > > Wild and his colleagues found that doubled CO2 will lead to an increase in accumulation that more than compensates for the enhanced melting (by a factor of almost four). Greenland’s net contribution to sea level works out to a lowering of 0.32 millimeter per year, or 3.2 centimeters per century. That is, the magnitude of the beneficial effect is between 4 and 29 percent of the change in sea level that was expected to take place over the next century. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/18 "2009-08-25T20:03:34Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I’d be a little distrustful of those maps. The map of the hundred-metre rise has Lake Superior underwater, yet Wikipedia [says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_superior) its surface is at 180 metres above present sea level. I think that’s just Lake Superior being Lake Superior. Only Ontario winds up begin swamped by the Atlantic/Gulf of St Lawrence ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/19 "2009-08-25T20:11:16Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I’ve seen mugs that have the modern coastline on them, and when you fill them with hot liquid it turns into the global warming coastline. Yeah, we have one of these. My in-laws will need a houseboat, as their entire state (Florida) is pretty much _gone_. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643/20 "2009-08-25T20:32:55Z")
I can tell you one thing. If you get close to a 100 (300) meter rise, virtually ALL of Florida will be underwater, and most that by a good margin. If IRC the highest spot in Florida is about 280 feet, and thats near the southern Alabama border. Oh, and another thing, the oceans average temp rising just a bit is nearly as bad all that melting ice. Take an ocean thats an average of a few thousand feet thick, warm it a few degrees, and its gonna rise a fair bit that has nothing to do with melting ice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-ice-and-snow-all-over-the-planet-melts-where-will-the-new-coastline-be/507643.md?page=2)