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Showing results for tags 'global warming'.
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By now we've all heard about the melting polar ice caps and how the sea levels will rise causing all sorts of mayhem, right? Well, the other day i was daydreaming, again, and a rather perplexing conundrum popped into my noodle. Back from my basic chemistry class in HS i learned that water is a very unique substance. Unlike nearly all other materials its solid form contains less mass than does its liquid form. It is for this reason that when water freezes it floats, because it becomes less dense than its liquid counter part and essentially why life can exist in areas that are below freezing for long periods of time. The important thing to remember is that ice contains less water than liquid. With that in mind lets conduct a little experiment. Lets say we have a contain (shape and volume do not matter) and can somehow fill it entirely with ice perfectly to the rim, without the container deforming. If we were to allow the ice to melt completely wouldn't the liquid water level be significantly lower than the rim of our container? Lets increase the size of our experiment to say the size of an ocean and lets drop a few ice cubes (polar ice caps) into it. While our 'ice cubes' are solid they are of a larger volume and thusly displace more water. As the ice (less dense) begins to return to water (more dense) wouldnt the water levels go down and not up??? Even if what i am saying is true, the melting of the ice caps is definitely not a good thing. From the loss of habitat to the massive influx of fresh water into the oceans and its possible repercussions, it is something we should be trying to circumvent. Cliff notes: The melting of the polar ice caps would could sea levels to drop instead of rise. With all of this said you may begin to think i am not a believer in global warming, quite the contrary actually. I believe something is happening and i also believe we (humans) are directly to blame. Hope you find this as intriguing as i did. :thumbsup: FPC, out.