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You are here: Home / World / What Would Happen If The Ice Cap In Antarctica Melted?

What Would Happen If The Ice Cap In Antarctica Melted?

May 28, 2020 by Karen Hill

The continent of Antarctica, which surrounds the South Pole, has an area of more than 5 million square miles.

Only a few hundred miles of the continent are free from a permanent cover of ice. The ice cap that covers Antarctica is more than 6,000 feet thick in many places. At some points, it’s over 11,000 feet thick, more than two miles!

You can imagine how much water must be frozen in the Antarctic ice to form a mile-thick ice cap over an entire continent.

It’s been estimated that if the ice cap of Antarctica were to melt, it would raise the level of the oceans by 240 feet, and flood about one-quarter of the earth’s land!

Related Facts

  • What Would Happen If the Antarctic Ice Sheet Melted and How High Would the Sea Level Rise?
  • What Would Happen To Sea Levels On Earth If the Polar Ice Caps Melted Completely?
  • How Did Antarctica Get Its Name, What Does Antarctica Mean In Greek, and Is Antarctica a Country?
  • Why does Ice Cream Shrink when melted and How much Air does Ice Cream contain?
  • How Would Penguins Survive In the Arctic and Would Polar Bears Survive In Antarctica If They Moved There?
  • How Much Life Does the Artic Have Compared to Antarctica and Is the Arctic Barren Like Antarctica?

Filed Under: World

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « How Deep Is the Ocean And Where Is The Deepest Point?
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