Would the unnatural loss of polar ice cause the global entropy to warm?
You actual post asks a different question than the title. I’d think that merely cutting the ice caps into small cubes won’t affect the net temperature. But having them suddenly vanish (naturally or not) is a whole different question.
What is it that you’re really asking about?
If they were left in situ, I’d agree. If they were then distributed around the world it would mean all the cubes in warm regions melting in minutes instead of centuries, and all that water dumped at once into the atmosphere and later the oceans would have to have significant consequences. All in all, it is probably better to not do it.
Alright lets give a time frame of a week. What would happen?
Wouldn’t the huge increase in surface area resulting in much faster melting?
Yes, but only if they were scattered so that the surface area were exposed.
But if the caps were sliced with some sort of magic sword and left in place, then no.
I assume this means polar ice caps removed and redistributed around the world, where the ice would melt very quickly. What would happen:
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The rate of polar warming at both poles would accelerate enormously, and average global temperature would follow.
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There would be major changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation systems, leading to widespread regional climate changes and very extreme weather all over the world.
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The earth’s climate sensitivity – the response to any given increase in CO2 – would nearly triple. Global temperatures would soar.
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Sea level would rise about 230 feet, wiping out all coastal cities and completely changing the map of the world.
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Most likely, the majority of the world’s population would die, for a variety of reasons like heat, disease, flooding, and extreme weather, but mostly from famine.
What would cause this? The loss of so much land area, or something else?
Climate sensitivity is a function of the climate forcing caused by increase of greenhouse gases and the sum of all feedbacks, positive and negative. Removal of the polar ice caps would tremendously increase the ice-albedo feedback, because suddenly the polar areas would be much darker and absorb much more thermal energy. Ocean water and land are both much darker than ice cover. The climate scientist James Hansen has estimated that current estimates of climate sensitivity would totally skyrocket if there was significant loss of polar ice because the feedback equation would change massively.
Wow. Thanks!
A big giant laser could slice the caps into ice cubes resulting in a catastrophic global event. Did anybody notice how straight the edges are on some icebergs?
Clearly some of those icebergs were created by the Jewish Space Laser.
Nobody has mentioned the heat generated by whatever device is used to cut the polar icecaps into cubes. That heat would go into the atmosphere, increasing the global temp.
They’re not going to stay exactly in situ, I would imagine - cutting them into cubes would cause them to slump at least a bit, and certainly at the edges (not sure what the angle of repose would be for ice cubes, but I’m assuming it might be shallower than for, say, gravel) - parts further inland might refreeze together before there’s anywhere for them to slump to, but even then, would the refrozen mass of ice cubes have the same integrity as a solid block of ice?
Actually, that’s exactly why I referred to a device that does NOT generate heat:
In sub-zero temps and under even light pressure, they should refreeze together almost instantly. Think tounge on flagpole.
The device would be above the atmosphere.