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zankaon
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Antarctica has a total of 25.4 million km^2 of ice. West Antactica Ice Sheet (WAIS) has a volume of 2.2 million km^3 of ice. WAIS is that part of Antactica west of transantarctic mountains. The surface of Earth is 510,072,000 km^2; while the ocean is 71% of such surface; giving 361 million km^2. So 2.2 million km^3 of ice / 361 million km^2 of ocean surface = 6.1 x 10^-3 km of sea surface rise from WAIS total melt. This is a 6 meter (18 feet) sea surface rise. However one has the caveat, that WAIS is approximately 1000 ft below sea level. So for average ice thickness of 4000 ft, then 1/4 of WAIS melt would seem to stay, forming an archipelago. Therefore resulting in only about 13.5 feet rise in sea level. This then is supposedly one of the worse case scenarios for global warming.
See references:
earth.http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet
See references:
earth.http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet
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