An Interesting Question In Class

An Interesting Question in Class
One day in class, when we were talking about global warming and the consequences of it, we read from the supplementary materials( actually everywhere) that the melting of icebergs would cause the sea lever to rise. Veronica asked a very interesting question. In our physics lesson in middle school, we had such a model, according to the famous discipline of Archimedes. If a cube of ice melts in a glass of water, which is just about to spill, during the process of melting, the water will never overflow. Thus, the question came. How on earth does the sea lever raise?

In the class, I answered Veronica’s question by saying that the density of the sea water was different from pure water applied in the physics model. As the density of the liquid in that model was an important coefficient of the formula used, the results would be different as the density changed. I could answer this question, just because I had thought about it before. When I was in the high school, when I learned about global warming, I also had this doubt. After being haunted for long, I went to consult my physics teacher, and put up my hypothesis, which was the answer I told to Veronica. My physics teacher did not tell me correct answer directly, but helped me to make a model to do an experiment to see whether the assumption was true or not.

He searched the statistics about the densities of the salty water of different concentration for me. And then, I ought to set up the model similar to the one used to explain the Archimedes Discipline all by myself. I tried different type of salty water in order to minimize the inaccuracy. Finally, the result came out. It showed that the water would overflow a little, if the density of liquid changed. I was quite excited about the conclusion. I thought that although because of the limitation of our labs condition, the scale of the experiment was small, I could assume that if the water and the ice were in large amount, the effect would be very significant. I thought that I held the key to the truth at that time. I believed that it was just this answer I longed.

However, this time, when someone raised the question again, I started to think about it once more. I started to wonder whether the answer I got was the true answer. Thus, during my leisure time, I went on the Internet. The things I found were amazing. The various materials not only cleared my confusion, but also broadened my knowledge on global warming. Why does the sea lever rise? The main reason is that the ice that is melting is the land-based ice, so the volume is not counted. The floating ice is also melting, but as the discipline proves, the lever of the sea will not rise on account of this. At the same time, the global warming contributes to the increase of the temperature of the oceans. The density of the water reaches the largest when the temperature of this approaches four degree Celsius. If the density rises, the volume will be enlarged, and this attributes to the rise of the oceans.

Besides, I also found some interesting facts about global warming. When it comes to the term global warming, what strike your mind immediately? I will think of a big iceberg falling from a tremendous piece of glacier to the ocean in the Antarctic, but actually, according to the recent years’ observation, the eastern part of the Antarctic Continent is getting thicker. It is the ice cap in Greenland that is in danger of disappearing from the earth. The scariest thing is that Greenland is the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water. If the water just flows away in to the salty oceans like this, what can we save for the generation to come?
The thing I want to say is that knowledge is everywhere around us in our lives, only if we pay attention to find and put efforts to look for.