http://www.cleverscampcamp.com/snow-peak/
If all the ice on earth was to melt, from glaciers and snow to ice cubes and snow cones, how deep would the wa?
If all the ice on earth was to melt (just melt, not evaporate), from glaciers and snow to ice cubes and snow cones, how deep would the water be worldwide? Would it reach the peak of Mt. Everest, or not even come close?
Before we either dismiss this as craziness or start planting trees to offset our carbon, let’s actually use some real math & science.
The formula for the surface area of a sphere (which earth is approximately a sphere) is
4 pi r^2.
Now the radius of the earth is about 3,950 miles (about 7,900 in diameter).
Therefore, the surface area is about 196,000,000 square miles.
if 70% of the earth is covered with water,
that’s about 137,000,000 square miles.
If we had a block of ice that is 1,000 miles long & wide – that would be 1,000,000 square miles.
If that block of ice was 10 miles tall (considering mt everest is about 6 miles above sea level, that would be one REALLY big block of ice).
Anyway, 10 miles tall, it would provide 10,000,000 cubic miles of water (when melted).
Distributing all of this ice over the waterways of the planet (137,000,000 square miles) gives us this equation…
137,000,000 times height = 10,000,000
height = 10/137 miles = 0.073 miles = 385 feet.
So, if we had 1,000,000 square miles of ice that is 10 miles high (almost twice the height of mt everest), and melted it all – it would raise the water level by less than 400 feet.
Now, that’s a lot of water – so let’s look at a real block of ice.
The area of Greenland is 836,109 sq miles.
With ice volume of 680,000 cu miles.
If we melt all of it,
137,000,000 times height = 680,000
height = 0.005 miles = 26 feet.
So, let’s hope it all doesn’t melt.
Snow Peak Lite Max