The textbook used is essentials of oceanography 7e by tom garrison. I cant seem

Question

The textbook used is essentials of oceanography 7e by tom garrison. I cant seem to find those statistics so if you could answer this and shwo work thanks. It should be noted that some of the iceburgs are already displacing the water since they are submerged.

If all the ice on earth melted into the ocean, how much would sea level rise? (Hint: Chapter 2 gives you numbers for the average depth of the ocean, the area of the ocean and the percentage of the earth's water contained in the ocean. From there you can calculate the volume of all earth's water. Then chapter 2 also gives you the percentage of that water which is ice. If you add that volume to the ocean, keeping the area the same, how much does the depth change?)

Explanation / Answer

I have some data from other sources which can help to solve this problem. In case the values differ in the mentioned book, those values can be simply plugged in to these equations and the problem can be solved for the new set of values.

Before beginning, we must make some assumptions to simplify the solution:

1.       Ice and water have the same density.

2.       Only ice that is grounded will affect changes in water level. Floating and submerged ice are already displacing water close their own volume, and do not change the volume.

According to the data:         

About 2% of the ocean water is ice. About 98% of this ice is grounded. So, we have to find the 98% of 2% = [(2/100) x (98/100)] x100 = 1.96% of the ocean water is grounded ice.

Average depth of the ocean is 3.668 km,

Area of the ocean is 361.9x106 km2.

a)      So, the total volume of the sea = average depth x area of the ocean = 3.668 x 361.9 x 106 = 1327.4 x 106 km3.

b)      Calculatinig 1.96% of the total ocean volume = grounded ice volume = (1.96/100)*1327.4x106 = 26x106 km3.

c)       The total volume after the adding ice becomes (26+1327.4) x 106 = 1353.42 x 106 km3.

d)      Let’s now calculate the new average depth. We will use the same formula as in (a).

i.       Average Depth = total volume / total area = (1353.42 x 106) / (361.9 x 106) = 3.740 km.

e)      The change in depth = New average depth – Old average depth = 3.740 – 3.668 = 0.072 km = 72 m.

The answer is - Sea level will change by 72 m.

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