Greenland contains 2.5 million cubic kilometers of ice.
- The surface area of the island is 2.1 million square kilometers
- Ice covers 84% of the land
- The weight of the ice has caused the underlying ground to sink forming a cup shape that is 300 meters below sea level in the center
- The mean thickness of the ice cap is 2,135 meters
- The shape of the ice cap is a dome with a thickness at the summit of over 3,000 meters
- Wind blows constantly from the highest point of the dome outward to the edges (gravitic wind effect here and Antarctica)
- The rate of ice melting from the cap has increased by a factor of 2.5 times between 1996 and 2006
- However the ice cap has been growing thicker at the rate of 20-30cm per year because there is more precipitation than melting (another one of those predicted but seemingly contradictory global warming elements)
- Ultimately as temperatures continue to rise, melting will come to dominate additions via precipitation and the ice cap will shrink.
- Temperatures average -25C ranging from -70C to
Do the math:- The surface area of the Earth is 4*pi*r2 where r the radius of the earth is 4,000 miles or 6,400 km so Area=514 million km2 (actually it's 510 million km2 according to Wikipedia)
- The oceans cover 70% of the surface of the Earth or 360 million km2
- The density of ice is 92% the density of liquid water
- The surface of greenland is a saucer shaped area almost 1000 feet below sea level at its center so the bottom 10% of the melted ise will remain in place, filling this giant lake.
- Adding 2.1 (.9*.92*2.5) million km3 of water to the oceans would increase the depth of the oceans by 6 meters (20 feet)
Note: Antarctica contains ten times as much ice as Greenland.