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During Global Warming, as ice melts, hugh amounts of weight are being redistributed onto the Earth's surf?

Surface? Can this be calculated? (estimated?) What effect will this have on Plate Tectonics. Are we heading for a period of increased earthquake and volcano activity?

I ask this here because I'm looking for answers along the redistribution of weight study. Is anybody studying this? If so, what's the latest.

Update:

As the plates shift, couldn't a few holes ripped in the surface send us right back into a mini ice age?

4 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes, the continental shelf under major ice sheets is depressed because of the weight of the ice.

    This happens in both Greenland and Antarctica, and if the ice were to suddenly all disappear the land on those continents would uplift by hundreds of meters.

    Even in the worst global warming scenario, the disappearance of those ice sheets takes centuries or millenia. Also, the seismic activity is mostly "local". The ongoing activity is studied by geologists.

  • mahlon
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    The weight isn't being redistributed as the ice, whether in the form of ice or water, is the same. The changes are in:

    > the volume of water (as ice melts, it actually expands),

    > the temperature of the water (as the ice melts temperature drops), and

    > the salinity of the water (as the salinity decreases, the melting point decreases which accelerates melting) .

    As the volume increases, water will encroach on coastal areas. As the temperature and salinity levels decrease, so will the temperature of prevailing winds. As those winds become cooler, so will the temperature of the planet.

    Source(s): Reading research
  • 8 years ago

    The effect it would have is called isostatic rebound, mostly in Greenland, the Canadian Arctic (which is actually still undergoing uplift from the termination of the last glacial maximum) and Antarctica. This could have a subtle effect upon earthquake activity in those parts of the world.

  • Anon
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    The difference in weight is negligible.

    But the sea level will rise and our weather will go haywire.

    It is already happening.

    Source(s): Straight fact.
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