Sea Ice and Land Ice
Ice melts, we know that.
When we were talking about the Ice Sheets at the Poles melting
we wanted to know if there was a difference between the effect melting sea ice and
melting land ice has on sea levels.
Our experiment was simple to set up. We used two “beakers”. In
one beaker we put water in to a level of 400ml then Put a sheet of plastic,
with holes in, over the top. Then we put ice cubes on the plastic and left it
to melt.
At the same time we put the same number of ice cubes in the
second beaker, the filled the beaker to the 400ml level. The water level was
the same in both beakers as that represented the sea level.
We allowed the ice to melt naturally. The sea ice melted much
more quickly than the land ice.
When we examined the water measures once both lots of ice had
melted it was easy to see that melting land ice has a bigger impact on sea
level.
Talking technically we understand that warmer oceans melt the
land ice that empties out into the seas, so the additional freshwater raises
sea level; warmer oceans expand, also causing sea levels to rise.
We need to act now to prevent, or at the least slow down Climate
Change.