If ocean water is going to expand and flood the world as it warms, why does water heated in a cup not overflow

The water expansion experiment is part of the grade 10 science curriculum. Fill an Erlenmeyer flask with distilled water. Put a stopper with two holes on top. Insert a thermometer in one hole and a glass tube in the other. Place the flask in a water bath and apply heat to the water bath. The change in volume is easily measured by the change in volume in the glass tube.

The cup does not overflow because hydrogen bonds are strong. The expansion is quite small and the surface tension is sufficient to contain the liquid. (Molecules in the bulk have a lower energy than molecules on the surface, so there is an energy cost to increasing the surface area.) The ocean is a lot deeper than your cup with a typical depth of 5000 m. Multiply the expansion in the cup by a factor of approximately 50,000 to get an estimate of the change in the ocean level.

On a slightly deeper level, water can be thought of as a solid with short range crystalline order. That is, small clusters of molecules have crystalline order for a few microseconds, break apart easily (because of the high surface energy of a small cluster) and reform. This behaviour can been measured by doing band shape deconvolution on the O-H stretching band near 3500 cm-1. Small clusters increase the effective mass and shift the absorption to lower frequency. The ordering is also measured by neutron scattering experiments.

Water heated in a cup won't over flow because when you heat up water it evaperates. The overflow of water hapens when land based ice melts.

A couple of factors:

The cup itself expands with the rise in temperature

The oceans are thousands of times deeper than the cup

The amount of expansion of water that comes from warming is minimal. What will cause flooding is the rapid menting of glaciers and ice sheets, which are normally above sea level.

I suspect your cup experiment hasn't been done carefully enough. Unless you trap the evaporation/steam of a heating cup of water, you may miss much of the expansion.

Water is unusual in that it's most dense at 4° C. Any water colder (or warmer) than that will take up more volume.

Wow,do you want a Nobel Prize for such a detailed theory of how global warming is a hoax? Are you a real science guy? Or do you play one on Y.A?

it has something to do with the ozone and moisture that is in the atmosphere coming down and not going back up as well as the glaciers melting. it was spelled out real clear in an incovient truth i recomend watching it.

because it doesn't have an ozone layer and steems can leave the cup.

it wont flood the world.

most of the increase in sea level will be due to the thermal expansion of the oceans. there is also a chance that land based ice will melt (eg Greenland Antarctica). this will cause rising seas but that is not a present concern for most countries.

these are the IPCC's predictions. and although rising seas may not effect you it will effect people who live in low places such as Bangladesh.

* Scenario B1

o Best estimate temperature rise of 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C (3.2 °F with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.2 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [18 to 38 cm] (7 to 15 inches)

* Scenario A1T

o Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C (4.3 °F with a likely range of 2.5 to 6.8 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [20 to 45 cm] (8 to 18 inches)

* Scenario B2

o Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C (4.3 °F with a likely range of 2.5 to 6.8 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [20 to 43 cm] (8 to 17 inches)

* Scenario A1B

o Best estimate temperature rise of 2.8 °C with a likely range of 1.7 to 4.4 °C (5.0 °F with a likely range of 3.1 to 7.9 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [21 to 48 cm] (8 to 19 inches)

* Scenario A2

o Best estimate temperature rise of 3.4 °C with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.4 °C (6.1 °F with a likely range of 3.6 to 9.7 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [23 to 51 cm] (9 to 20 inches)

* Scenario A1FI

o Best estimate temperature rise of 4.0 °C with a likely range of 2.4 to 6.4 °C (7.2 °F with a likely range of 4.3 to 11.5 °F)

o Sea level rise likely range [26 to 59 cm] (10 to 23 inches)