You're missing the added factor of water expanding in volume when warmer
2/2
Ok was getting into a simple #Gedankenexperiment. since I first heard about global warming in 1993, I have been struggling with one thing.... the differential volume of a sphere (or oblate spheroid in this case.)
using 6378 km for earths radius (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)
So Surface area of oceans, conservatively is:
4*pi*r^2 = 4*3.1415*6378*6378 = 511,170,000 (keeping only 4 sig figs)
The projected sea level rise by 2100 per https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
"on a pathway with high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse, models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150.2"
Now about 71% of earth is water, but for this calculation lets conservatively estimate that the connected oceans are only 65% of the surface:
The volume of ice needed to do this would be:
65(4/3*pi*r_final^3 - 4/3*pi*r_intial^3 )=0.65*(1.087874E12 - 1,086749E12) = 731,200,000 km^3
Now it is estimated that there are about 26,500,000 km^3 of ice in antarctica (if it all melts) and that is the largest deposit in the world. Greenland is also large but less than that, and all the other ice (i.e. Arctic, mountains, etc...) might be 7,000,000 km^3
So conservatively estimating that there is no more than 60,000,000 km^3 of ice in the world (most likely closer to 45-50 million cubic kilometers)
How can see levels rise 2.2 meters? you are a good solid 680,000,000 km^3 short (yes 680 million cubic kilometers short)
What am I missing. These are smart scientists I can't believe a small down #chicagoan would out think the best scientists in the world
Discussion
Ok thanks I knew there was something, let’s go there. This is very much a non quantitative document. These are very common when scientists or others want to speak down at you, have a theory but no numbers.
There is one number in the article it states that thermal expansion accounts for about 1/2. Using my above caculation, that might be about 2-4 inches of sea level rise.
BUT
AVERAGE SEA TEMPERATURE:
The usually quoted value is 3.52 degrees Celsius. This is the volume-weighted average, calculated some decades ago from many thousands of measurements throughout much of the ocean. It is in fact the potential temperature.
Water has a negative coefficient of thermal expansion below 4°C, indicating that its volume decreases when temperature moves from 0°C to 4°C. The coefficient of thermal expansion of water is not constant and is not even linear.
SO IT ACTUALLY SHRINKS, contracts for the first .5C rise, before it even starts to expand.
If I was the science teacher in that science class trying to teach kids about global warming I would do that exact same experiment but would make sure that they started with a water at exactly 3.5°C heat it 1 degree, slowly and ask them to explain what happened they’d be so confuse.