Flooded by facts
From Peter Hall
Sir: Paul Johnson writes that if all the water in the ice caps and the glaciers melted ‘the sea level would not rise much’ (And another thing, 11 February). I’m not so sure.
Using Mr Johnson’s figures, I estimate that there are 28 million cubic kilometres of water contained in the ice caps, etc. Dividing that number by the world’s surface area of 510 million square kilometres gives about 5.5 per cent of a cubic kilometre of ice-cap meltwater per square kilometre of surface or about 55 metres.
Given that some parts of the world would not be covered by water it is possible that the sea level could rise by (say) 70 metres or about 200 feet. Abstruse hydrological factors involving temperature, pressure and water volume might increase this even further.
That seems quite a lot and certainly enough to cover most of Mr Johnson’s (and my) favourite places.
Peter Hall
São Paulo, Brazil
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