If an ice cube melts in your glass does it overflow?

[playshogi]

Firaxis seems to think that if sea ice melts, sea levels rise, but it doesn't. Only if ice on land melts would sea levels rise. But in Civ 6 is there any ice on land tiles?

 

[Human Crouton]

It's funny that you mentioned this because I just did this exact experiment a couple of days ago to show someone this behavior.

 

[Rath_O_God]

You know I didn't realize it until now but you're right, they don't have any ice on land tiles. Guess I never paid much attention to that until now.

 

[Ziad]

There's snow on land tiles (which basically represent the various forms of land ice). They could have technically implemented an oceanic temperature mechanic (in addition to the CO2 mechanic). When CO2 emissions rise enough, they could have shown those snow tiles in the poles melt into tundra. Nearby water tiles then become extra flooded, and then ocean temperate begins to increase. When those temperates get high enough, sea ice melting accelerates. Then the combination of sea ice melting and cap melting leads to all those flooding mechanics.

Seems a little convoluted though.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Water expands when it gets warmer. When you're talking about Billions of cubic meters of water, a rise of 1 degree C or F makes the expansion significant, since the oceans can only expand in one direction - Up. While adding several cubic kilometers of water from, say, the Antarctica or Greenland landmasses would/will have significant impact on sea level rise, I believe that so far most of the rise has come from the steady increase in overall ocean temperatures and consequent increase in the volume of the water. That makes the GS sea level rise a valid Game Mechanic.
I agree that it would be more effective if they included some significant Arctic/Antarctic ice-covered landmasses to melt, but from some of the models I've seen, there might also be a catastrophic sea level rise associated with such a 'mass conversion of land ice into seawater which would/should also be modeled, which in turn would require significant changes in any game mechanic associated with it. Instead of slow demolition of City-associated Improvements, you get a sudden inundation of coastal areas everywhere that neither the gamer nor the AI has a prayer of doing anything about, which makes for very poor game design.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Ugh we have a denier.

The ocean is saltwater. Ice caps are freshwater. Freshwater ice displaces less volume floating in salt water than it does floating in freshwater. Ergo, yes, melting the ice adds more water by volume than the ice was displacing in solid form.

I.e., yes, sea level can and does rise.

Gotta love how the root of all conservativism is a lack of scientific education.

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[Ziad]

Pollution Bad. World Hotter. Ice Caps Melt. Waters rise.

Simple enough for a game.

 

[sonicmyst]

Firaxis seems to think that if sea ice melts, sea levels rise, but it doesn't. Only if ice on land melts would sea levels rise. But in Civ 6 is there any ice on land tiles?

I am curious as to any scientific source on this claim.

 

[MooFreaky]

I am curious as to any scientific source on this claim.

While you can get a slight increase in water level by sea ice melting, it isn't huge. This is because the vast majority of said ice is already in the water, thus it is already taken into account. If that ice melts, it is still water and still in the ocean so little/no change. After melting that water will actually shrink (water expands as it freezes due to its molecular alignment, thus it shrinks as it melts), until it reaches about 3°C at which point it begins expanding again. So while the sea ice melting is shrinking, the vast majority of the oceans are expanding as the water warms. So it is still a net growth.

What is causing the most concerning increase is that there is a butt tonne of ice and snow on and around the poles that currently sits on land which is now melting. With even a slight change in temperature it loses structural integrity and collapses into the water. That is what ups the sea levels.
And there is A LOT of ice that is currently out of the water that is at risk of, or already is, falling into the water.

EDIT: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/whats-causing-sea-level-rise-land-ice-vs-sea-ice/

Here is a NASA article / school experiment to explain and demonstrate

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Scientific source?

The last Ice-Age track records has plenty of undeniable evidence that its global ICE coverage (mostly contained in about 35% of the Northern Hemisphere) melted enough to drastically raise "oceanic" levels worldwide (multiple coastal plates flooding stand as proof). Australia-Guinea & Bering Strait just to name two obvious contexts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period

Quoting the essential facts...
-----
According to the United States Geographical Survey (USGS), permanent summer ice covered about 8% of Earth's surface and 25% of the land area during the last glacial maximum. The USGS also states that sea level was about 125 meters (410 feet) lower than in present times (2012).

When comparing to the present, the average global temperature was 15.0 °C (58.9 °F) for the 2013-2017 period. Currently (as of 2012), about 3.1% of Earth's surface and 10.7% of the land area is covered in year-round ice.
-----

By logical extrapolation -- current conditions (aka-Global Warming) should also generate a relatively "small" (if not, controllable in certain areas) amount of cloud dispersion patterns & liquid water that can't go anywhere else but into the whole static planetary pool.

How & when precisely is anybody's guess. But it *will* happen.

 

[Deggial]

Ugh we have a denier.

The ocean is saltwater. Ice caps are freshwater. Freshwater ice displaces less volume floating in salt water than it does floating in freshwater. Ergo, yes, melting the ice adds more water by volume than the ice was displacing in solid form.

I.e., yes, sea level can and does rise.

Gotta love how the root of all conservatism is a lack of scientific education.

Indeed. Thanks for saving me some typing.
However, to do the matter justice, floating & melting freshwater ice will only add an insignificant amount of sea level rise in comparison to ice on landmasses. (A few millimeters, IIRC.)

 

[MooFreaky]

I don't think he is actually denying climate change or the rising sea levels. In fact, he even points out that it is land ice that is what causes it and that is something that isn't really in Civ. We don't have massive glaciers anywhere on land in the game.

 

[Victoria]

Only if ice on land melts would sea levels rise.

You are correct however you know you are just being contentious... Civ has plenty of snow and you know some of that snow on land in real life is very deep so we must make the assumption it is in civ... but who knows, maybe it will turn to tundra?

What I DO know is that the stupid thin islands appear to be gone where they carved a passage at the end of map creation, instead they fill the bottom and top with ice. So early navigation may not be able to make it around every continent.

 

[JimGrumpypants]

Freshwater icemelt has more volume than the equivalent mass of the denser saltwater which is displaced by the ice.

So yes, ice melting in the ocean will increase water level.

https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/170/1/145/2019346

 

[MooFreaky]

Freshwater icemelt has more volume than the equivalent mass of the denser saltwater which is displaced by the ice.

So yes, ice melting in the ocean will increase water level.

https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/170/1/145/2019346

True, but not much compared to land ice. As that article states the melt is a secondary effect. When the land ice breaks off and falls in it will have a big increase. Then as it melts you get a secondary increase of around 2.6% of the increase that happened when the ice entered the water. So you won't get a 2.6% increase in the total ocean levels or anything.

 

[Victoria]

it will have a big increase.

Good point, just be aware that the amount of direct melted water into the ocean is larger than the falling blocks.

is there any ice on land tiles?

Yes, underneath the snow tiles.

To correctly answer the thread, if your glass is filled to near the brim before the ice melts then yes, otherwise no.

 

[Arent11]

Firaxis seems to think that if sea ice melts, sea levels rise, but it doesn't. Only if ice on land melts would sea levels rise. But in Civ 6 is there any ice on land tiles?

The point is that political parties need absolute truths & people in general don't like to be 'educated'. If Firaxis honestly wanted to cover the effects of pollution they would have to:

(1) Cover the direct effects of pollution, namely adverse health effects, which was a big historical problem in the time of industrialization and even today in china and other countries
(2) Cover the effects of global dimming and potential ice ages (was predicted in the ~1950s)
(3) cover the effects of co2 and potential global warming (was predicted in the ~1970s)
(4) cover the effects of nuclear wars
(5) cover the effects of potential meteor strikes and huge volcanic eruptions

-> It is a bit weird that in a "historical" game the whole health effects of industrialization are ignored, the wiping out of dinosaurs by catastrophic meteor strikes or volcanoes, the effect of global dimming and I also don't know what effects nuclear wars have (Ice age? Global warming?).

 

[Haggbart]

The point is that political parties need absolute truths & people in general don't like to be 'educated'. If Firaxis honestly wanted to cover the effects of pollution they would have to:

(1) Cover the direct effects of pollution, namely adverse health effects, which was a big historical problem in the time of industrialization and even today in china and other countries

-> It is a bit weird that in a "historical" game the whole health effects of industrialization are ignored, the wiping out of dinosaurs by catastrophic meteor strikes or volcanoes, the effect of global dimming and I also don't know what effects nuclear wars have (Ice age? Global warming?).

Even though life expectancy was pretty low among factory workers in a lot of cities, the general increase in purchasing power, food, sanitation, better housing and technology led to a net increase in life expectancy in the population. No doubt reduced child mortality played a huge part in this, but it's hard to seperate the positive effects of industrialization from the negative when the effects are net positive.

 

[kryat]

The question should not be “does the glass overflow”, but “does the water level rise”? The answer to this question takes more rigorous experimentation than common sense. When you’re talking about the depth of the ocean rising by a meter, that’s a change of 1 part per 4000. In other words, if a glass was 4 meters tall, you would be looking for a change in depth of 1 mm. If you were looking for a proportional change in a glass 10 cm tall, you would be looking for a delta of 25 micrometers. This takes more than common sense to observe!

 

[Victoria]

If this tube was the worlds water that would be a pretty awesome iceberg as 90% of an iceberg is underwater. How long is that tube?
Roughly 1.7% of the worlds water is ice.

As a wise man told me a few years ago, there is a lot of money and agendas to be made in global warming. Whether it really is an issue or not will be hard to discover as there will be a lot of disinformation.