But how clean is the floating Ice
I've never seen anyone consider this in a journal but consider the following:
You have a block of Ice in a of water glass with a small lead shot frozen in it. As the ice melts what happens to the water level?
The dense lead pulls more of the less dense ice under the water level until it reaches neutral boyancy. As the ice melts the shot will fall to the bottom and the ice will generally rise to a new level of neutral boyancy and finish melting. The level of the water on the side of the glass will in fact be lower once the melting is complete.
How much of the floating Ice in antarctica is glacial in origin and therefor full of rocks and other debris? How far will this go to offset the land based Ice melting?
I'd love to see a reference to an article that has considered this variable in future sea level rises...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
