If all of the ice of the Arctic ocean melted how far would the oceans rise?

Apparently the ice covering Greenland alone could raise the levels with 23 feet (7 meters). That's pretty bad.

Ice in the oceans does not affect the water level at all. It is the Ice resting on land we are concerned about. that are chiefly The south pole (Antarctica) and Greenland. Both have quite a lot of Ice resting on them and when all that ice melts it really will affect the waterlevel in the oceans.

Glaciers and mountaintops hold Ice too, but the amount is neglible compared to Antarctica and Greenland.

Note that melting sea-ice would have NO effect.

It's large volumes of ice thawing from the land, such as Greenland, faster than overall snow-fall, that affects sea-level.

I didn't view the video you cite (I don't have a YouTube account), but I read the précis below it, and that reads as if by some-one who had muddled things up. It talks of deep ocean currents below Greenland.

Eh? Greenland is a continental, or at least sub-continental, island - it can't have ocean currents under it.

Its ice might melt by atmospheric warming, but the comment didn't say that.

Let's look at Greenland alone losing its ice-cap. Greenland holds a vast amount of ice but surely not enough on its own to raise world-wide sea-level by 7metres. I suspect the source of that figure is taking all land-ice, not just that island's.


It would be easy to calculate given the figures: volume of ice on the island divided by world-wide area of sea.

So let's try it. Looking up figures, and if someone with a better head for figures can verify my sums please do so (it's called Peer Review!):
  
   Ice volume on Greenland: 2.85 x 10^6 km^3 (approx.)

   Ocean area                      3.35 x 10^8 km^2 (approx.). Multiplying to give equal 10s-powers, = 335 X 10^6 km^2

     So Greenland's ice melted and added to the sea would raise the level by
   
     (2.85 / 335) X 10^(6-6)

     = 0.0085 x 10^0   (For any number N, N^0 = 1, by basic laws of indices and logarithms)
    
      = 0.0085 metres.


In other words, melting Greenland's ice cover on its own as you suggest, would raise world-wide sea level by just about 9 millimetres!


In practice, Greenland alone would not thaw under a warming climate. It could happen if Greenland is being warmed by developing volcanic-related activity below it, and about the only vaguely-sensible remark below the video draws attention to that, albeit rather childishly. 

If all the ice on all other land of similar latitudes (except perhaps Antarctica, which on the whole is apparently cooling at present?) and on mountains up to a certain height, thawed too, by climate change, then the sea-level would certainly rise in metres, not mm.

A 7 metre rise is credible for the present Ice Age's interglacials (warm phases, albeit the one we are occupying probably being accelerated by human activity). ... If we are not in an interglacial just be glad we won't live to see the possible result.

The last interglacial's sea-level was about 10m above present, as I recall from the text-books. The upper Raised Beach at Portland Bill (local to me in Southern England), and a line of former sea-caves in the Garonne Estuary cliff (NW France), are at roughly that level above now by my own eye-ball estimates, though I don't know off-hand the interglacial to which they have been dated.


Greenland would rise if its ice all melts away! Water is at its most dense at 4ºC - its water's unique physical as well as chemical properties that allow life to exist on Earth.

 So 2.85 x  10^6 km^3 of ice melting and warming to 4ºC, gives about  2.57 10^6 km^3 of water.

   1 km^3 of water weighs 1 x 10^9 tonnes.

(I have used 1 cubic metre of water weighing 1 tonne at maximum density - I'm not sure if that's the standard temperature hence density for quoting water's properties, but it won't make much difference here).

SO Greenland is wearing effectively 2.57 x 10^(6 + 9) tonnes of water, as ice. In words, that's 2.57 Thousand Million Million tonnes, enough to depress the Earth's crust below it. As the ice disappears the Crust will "rebound" (that is the proper term) by its own elasticity over the following 10-15 thousand years, raising the island above its present position. However if the thaw is world-wide by climate change rather than internal mechanisms, the sea's own rise would probably overtake the island's uplift.


As I say I can't comment on the video because I can't view it, but it does show if you need proper answers to scientific questions you need to approach the problem and its principles properly. Unlike some of those posting below that YouTube video, who make me wonder about the future of education, especially in anything scientific - and (with the honourable exception of someone posting in what looks like Spanish) in English Language!

Whoa!.....Quite a bit, I'd say.

Quite a bit... Which is?

The question asks of the Arctic Ocean ice. That's floating sea-ice so won't make any difference.

Sapphic Heart then quotes from some YouTube video about Greenland's ice-cover, and I showed that alone would have next to no effect, and why; but then I explained what would give a 7+ metre-rise, which would have serious consequences for us...

I like global warming ------- my nipples don't get hard so much!

I ONLY mentioned the Arctic Ocean ice. Try an experiment...fill an container with ice cubes, then fill it to the very top with water. When the ice melts observe what happens. Simple things always seem to work better than complicated (to most) maths.