• Question: what are we gonna do when the ice caps melt?

    Asked by anisahkhan to Indi, Jarv, John, Ken, Vicky on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: John Prytherch

      John Prytherch answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      If the Antarctic Ice cap melts, sea level would rise a lot (more than 50 m), this would flood most cities in the world, so we would need to learn to breathe underwater!

      Fortunately this is unlikely to happen, at least within a thousand years or so. What is more likely is that the ice that has melted from Greenland and from Antarctica will raise sea level by a metre or two. We will either have to adapt to this (for example by damming rivers and bilding levies around coastal cities) which would be very difficult and expensive, or we could try and prevent this from happening by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we are emmitting.

      As an aside, if the Arctic ice cap melts, it won’t raise the sea level at all. Do you know why?

    • Photo: Jarvist Moore Frost

      Jarvist Moore Frost answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      And a related question to this is… do you know how high above sea level your school / home is?

    • Photo: Vicky Young

      Vicky Young answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Use the power of evolution to grow fins and gills and make friends with the dolphins!

    • Photo: Ken Dutton-Regester

      Ken Dutton-Regester answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      @Vicky- nah, evolution takes too long. How about bathing in a pool of nuclear waste and see what happens- it would work in the cartoons! Or why not do some genetic cross breeding with a mermaid?

Comments

  • Photo: Vicky

    Vicky commented on :

    @Ken oooh I could be the little mermaid with my red hair! But I’m not sure how I feel about nuclear waste – that’s more an incredible hulk thing, How about you try out the waste and I try the genetic cross-bread?? Then we can start out own superheros of the sea type gang?