We were shooting the shit at an impromptu happy hour at the office. Somehow the conversation moved to global warming, and my science denying coworker harumphed and said global warming is a HOAX and scientists are pandering to the politicians for grant money so don't believe a word they say. He somehow got the idea that even if all the glaciers melted, the oceans would only raise about 2"!!!
So we did what geeks do on a Friday night. We googled the data and did the math...
Antarctic glacier area is 5,400,000 miles², with an average thickness of 1.4 miles, so 7,560,000 miles³ of ice.
The area of all the oceans is 139,000,000 miles².
So if the Antarctic glacier completely melted, sea levels would rise about 0.0544 miles, or ~287 feet
My coworker, who honestly is a really nice guy until you bring up uhhh.... science, harumphed again and said you can't trust the data.
Anyway. SCIENCE BITCHES!!!
Also, doing simple math 3 whiskies in on a Friday night is harder than you think.