I guess the Times is betting on the stupidity of its readers.
Floating ice does not raise water levels when it melts.
Once again AGW promoters play their gullible sheep for fools.

hunter, houston, USA

Nobody can argue with you that the climate is changing. It always has and always will. 4,000 - 5,000 years ago the ocean was 18 degrees warmer than it is now. What is missing is proof that the warming is man made, sunspots, or other natural items. Until then, I believe spending resources on "solving" global warming is wasteful.

Al, Bel Air, MD, USA

Have any of the experts considered the possibilty that the global and antarctic warming is coming from beneath the surface? Fifty eight years ago when I was 12 years old I knew about the unfrozen lakes in the antarctic regions. Could it be that the undergound activity might be increasing? It was recently discovered that there are over 220,000 under the surface sea vents over the world. The sun is also a consideration. Water vapor is the MAIN greenhouse gas. We don't want to eliminate that. It only makes up more than 95 % of the greenhouse gases. The worriers are really power hungry when you get down to it.

Michael Rondeau, Las Vegas, NV USA

Do a bit of research before assuming that geologists and geophysicists do not know that free floating ice does not displace any additional water as the ice melts.

Ice sheets are masses of ice that are grounded. Over time, the ice moves to the sea. When the ice reaches a point where it is fully displaced (floating) in the sea the ice becomes an ice shelf.

Much of the land beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is below sea level. However, other than a few ice streams, the ice shelf was previously grounded on that land.

Melt water has accumulated below the ice sheet tens or even a few hundreds of feet. The sheet is floating on that trapped water. It is not, however, floating in the ocean so it has not yet displaced any oceanic water.

Also, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains about 2.2 million cubic kilometers of ice. The world's oceans cover about 335 million square kilometers. If the ice sheet were to completely melt, it would add a bit over 6 meters to the oceans' depth.

Paul E. Tickle, Baltimore, MD, USA

So, 1/5th of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is now "floating". That is a lot of ice, particularly as 2007 saw the greatest extent of ice ever recorded in Antarctica. Before I lose my mind in panic, I'd like a few questions answered.

1. What was the ice doing before?
2. How can this be happening as there is no warming in Antarctica, apart from on the Peninsula which is only about 2% of the total area?
3. Why didn't the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf cause any sea level rise?
4. Given that the Antarctic ice sheet is at its greatest ever recorded extent, does that make matters better or worse?

T

Tom, Shenington, UK

If one fifth of the continent is floating, the ocean levels cannot rise in the event of the ice breaking up and/or melting. It is no different than an ice cube melting in a glass of water. The level remains the same. The floating ice displaces the water. This is basic logic!

Carl - Glendora, CA USA

Carl, Glendora , California USA

Let's not forget, the eastern end of Antarctica is actually growing, anyone heard that one? Only if you look for it. And kudos to the people who think, engineering 101.

adigerol, Boulder, co

to Adam and Bill. There has been many reports of how the surface ice melts and runs down through cracks in the ice which lubricates the ice attached to rock. The ice on western Antarctica is on land but is literally floating on a layer of water. So if the ice shelves were to disintegrate, the whole ice pack on land which measures thousands of feet thick would slide into the ocean, raising sea levels 18 ft around the world. I hope this clears things up for you.

Chris , Colorado Springs, USA, Colorado

Even if these alarmist predictions were true (and based on past track record of climate alarmists this is extremely unlikely), this supposed fact (that "the ice is melting") in no way shape or form proves or even implies that man's activities have anything to do with this melting or that we can do anything about it. Only the politically biased climate models using bogus positive feedback mechanisms "prove" this association, and never seem to match reality when tested. Polar ice melting/accumulating cycles have gone on for milenia and a very long time before we were on the scene.

E. Grau, Huntington Beach, CA., USA

A few days ago I saw a sientific report with a similar topic.
There were numers about
China (now 5 mio cars in 20+ years about 500 mio. cars)
India (now 12 mio cars in 20+ years about 500 mio cars)
So whatever we do know int the west will not work if the asians by 8 cylinder US-Cars. Not even if they use normal small european cars.
As I can see the leader of this world acting I guess the poeple
living in the low lands better sell their houses and buy
house boats.

Klaus , Stuttgart , Germany

“I was told by scientists that the entire Western Antarctica is now floating. That is a fifth of the continent. If it broke up, sea levels may rise as much as six metres,..."

If it's already floating, how would it raise sea levels if it melted? That makes no sense whatsoever... it's already displacing it's own weight in water.

Bill Pearce, Jacksonville, FL US

when the ice which is floating on water melts, it does raise the water lrvel by a minimal.However what is happening in this acse is that the LAND ICE(i.e., the frozen ice-landmass constituting the antartic) has now started to melt and not just the ice floating on water.The rest requires elementary knowledge of the laws of physics to understand how it is going to create a huge increase in the sea levels.Ignoring a warning does not ward off the danger.It is a matter of survival of the human race , and so having an ostrich like approach is not going to help anybody.

Manisha rudra, Kolkata, India

What does it matter what the exact sea rise would be. We can assume that the calculation was based on reasonable physics and that the figure stated is equally within the realm of the possible. However, because of the tendancy of humanity to congregate near coastlines the result of a sea level rise of even one quarter of this amount would flood the homes of about one quarter of the worlds population, including most of Bangladesh and London. Such items as this are alarmist, but alarms are there to be listened to. The next IPCCC report comes out this week, diluted as usual by political control, and probably without reference to this latest prediction. Despite its under estimates it will again be decried by politicians whose jobs depend on not worrying electors or donors. It is to be hoped that we will eventually get to the stage when majority opinion overcomes self-interest and the exploitation of the earth's resources and the generation of waste material cannot continue.

Peter LEES, Radstock, UK

Adam, you need to talk with Eve...
For, we are talking about the displacement of a solid mass in water - as things are actually.
What if this solid breaks away and "strays", turning into a liquid, melting into the ocean currents .... ?
Cause and effect.
Nothing is static.

Jeffrey Moore, Toulouse, France

Obviously what we need in order to understand these types of predictions are the scientific calculations that appear to support them.

If the sea levels would rise by six metres then it should be shown how this number has been calculated only then can we know how much credence to give to that research. We need to be aware of how the scientists have calculated the volume of ice that might turn to water and how that in turn affects the land adjacent.

Alan C, Llanerchymedd, UK

If this ice sheet isactually floating it will have already displaced its weight of sea water. Hence the rise in sea water levels will be miminal as majority of floating ice is submerged. Can't we have a really debate and reporting o what is happening instead of sensational head lines.

Capt E.J. Fitch

Edmund Fitch, Lewes, UK

Hm. I found it quite ironic that the climate models directly contradict the predictions made in the article. This means that this is most likely a local phenomena, which has nothing to do with the "global warming". In other words - the end of the world is not here yet.

gringo, Hillsboro, Oregon

It is not really "floating ice". These ice masses are actually "ice shelves" (100-1000 metres thick ) grounded on the continent, "hanging" like a cantilever, and mostly emerging from the ocean (unlike sea ice, which is eight ninths submerged). Thus, melting of antarctic ice shelves would add huge volumes of water to the oceans.

antoni, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

“I was told by scientists that the entire Western Antarctica is now floating. That is a fifth of the continent. If it broke up, sea levels may rise as much as six metres,”

This makes no sense. If it's floating, it has already displaced the water meaning, sea levels shouldn't rise any more.

adam, Leeds, UK