These are some of the Questions that I received while discussing Climate change with non-climate professionals and students..... If you like to have your questions in relation to Climate change answered, please comment.
Q. 1. Isnt it a fact that 90% of mass of ice remains inside water......so in case the Ice bergs melt, the Sea levels shud go down !!!
Very basic experiment we did in class 6th........???
Answer: glaciers and ice sheets are the ice / snow on land.. the sea ice melting will have the effect you are thinking................ when the glaciers melts the additional water stored on land since about 2 my will be added to oceans which will make the sea level rise about 3-5 m... now get the altitude of Maldives and imagine..............
Q. 1a. Very true..........but both will melt simultaneously......!!!
Answer: Actually the sea ice will melt faster and that actually makes the sea surface more heat absorbing (ice being more reflecting) hence this fact actually is an accelerating factor of global warming.....
Q. 1b. What good does the Ice do to Earth in its present form and quantity ?? Apart from rising sea-levels, what are other cons of melting Ice ??
Answer: See above, one of the main ones are keeps the albedo (Total reflectance of a world e.g. Earth) high....... also maintains water storage in center of large continents likes Asia....... and maintains the temperature too..... this said....... there have been times when Earth has been ice free..... but humans were not there then....... we have never faced those temperature ranges and CO2 levels....... also it maintains the wind patterns and erosion patterns which are important in ecological point of view....... so this is a very vast field for Importance of Cryosphere.....