silly question

[Marijn]

I'm asking this question on my son's behalf; If you dropped two of the largest hydrogen bombs on the north and south poles, would there be any ice left or will it all have melted or evaporated? And if so, would it be possible if a much larger bomb were to be made?

[jake-the-peg]

Not even close

Greenland alone has 3 million cubic km of ice.

Quick back of an envelope calculation I make it you'd need

a billion 1 megatonne bombs

Antartica's 10 times as much ice and much colder

[Marijn]

Apparently he's writing a story. How many hydrogen bombs would it need?

[Marijn]

Whoops, I didn't read your answer properly. Thanks. I'll tell him.

[Marijn]

He wants to know..... what WOULD melt all the ice, in under a month? And how much would the sea level rise? Says he wants the story to be realistic, preferably not sci-fi. Cheers

[jake-the-peg]

The only thing I can really think of is a Supervolcano. something like the Siberian traps:
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permi an/SiberianTraps.html
or the one under Yellowstone http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/sup ervolcano/index.shtml

The ice rise wouldn't be that much over the north pole (7m) because that's already floating in the sea but in Antartica it's on land and there's a lot of it it'd do 61m.

[Marijn]

Thank you very much for your answers. He is now wondering how someone could cause a volcano to erupt. And what else would happen globally, if all the ice at both poles melted.

[jake-the-peg]

Well the Siberian traps probably trigered the largest mass extinction in the history of the planet.

Don't give him nightmares.

There is a lake under antartica called lake vostok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok

It's water under the ice.

Personally I'd take the theme and go with the discovery of another huge sub glacial lake kept liquid bu a supervolcano beneath antarctica and drill a hole through to it and sink a hydrogen bomb through the water into the neck of the supervolcano to release the rock plug and trigger the volcano.

It doesn't have to be scienticically accurate just credible - as Michael Crighton can testify

[Marijn]

Thank you very much, he's getting excited at the thought of writing this story. He asks... how would he get rid of the north pole?

[jake-the-peg]

North and South pole - doesn't wan't much - quite the little Blofeld isn't he?

Let me think - strokes white Persian cat.

If you melt Antartica first the wite snow and ice will no longer reflect light back into space which will result in a net warming of the planet - quite probably enough to melt the Arctic as well.

There you are two evil mastermind plans for the price of one .

Bu-wah-ha-ha-ha

[Marijn]

Thank you for your time. Your answer made him laugh.
All great answers. If the book gets published he'll give you the credit for the inspiration. : )

[Clanad]

Except jake 007 says Antarctica doesn't receive enough sunlight to materially effect any melting of itself or the Arctic. Additionally, although Antarctica is mainly rock with a thick mantle of ice and snow... actually, it's one of the driest deserts in the world... it is a continent unlike the Arctic which is ice and snow floating on the sea. Also, keep in mind the altitude of the South Pole is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level.
Additionally, although Mount Erebus (over 12,000 feet high) anchors the southern tip of the Ring of Fire surrounding the pacific and wherein the majority of the super-explosive volcanism occurs, it, being an active but Strombolian type of volcanic eruption producer, there's little chance that it could be induced to destroy any significant part of the Continent... (Moneypenny said so! But she is a stickler on spelling... it's Antarctica)... He'll have to deal with the Sastrugi as well...

[ryepie]

According to global warming theory, the melting of the ice caps would actually cause many areas to see a net decrease in local temperatures. Europe relies on the gulf stream (which brings up heat from the tropics) to provide much of its warmth. Take a look at a map and this will explain how even though the UK is on the same latitude as Canada, our seasons are much more temperate (a good example is New York being almost on the same latitude as Madrid, and look how harsh the winters can be in NY!).

If this gulf stream is disrupted by cold water from the arctic ice cap (and melting the entire arctic region will quite possibly shut it down for good) then Europe and Russia will end up having to put up with a loooong winter, for hundreds if not thousands of years.

[WeAreBongo]

I wrote a similar story many years ago, however the catastrophic melt was caused by careless research scientists who'd set their storage heaters to come on during the day and store heat during the night during the long dark arctic winter...When the sun did eventually rise, the storage heaters went supernova!!! It was frighteningly realistic and could actually happen!!

[Marijn]

Thank you all for your answers ; )

[Robb Phoenix]

The trouble is the earth has a natural tendency to cool.
If you use hydrogen bombs to melt the ice on earth, it would trigger a nuclear ice age. You could achieve the same effect by changing the orbit of an asteroid to hit the south pole, but that too would trigger a global ice age (as particles thrown into the air would hide the sun for a very long time).
Instead one could release all the green house gass reserves (esp methane) to intensify global warming and melt the poles but doing so would stop the ocean conveyor (which is why the Eastern Europe is not as cold as Canada or Russia.) But still the net effect would heat the earth to rise the sea level considerably.

btw here is an interesting fact planting trees in the the polar regions adds to the warming as trees cover the ice which reflects light into space and instead absorbs it.

[Marijn]

Thank you for your answer. My son would like to know how to prevent someone from being assinated. What would be the best, guaranteed way, money no object? Involving technology, geography, space travel, anything at all that would prevent someone being assasinated.

[Marijn]

*assassinated

[Robb Phoenix]

Send the person to a top secret location on Mars
and build an artificial habitat for him there.He must not need any external aid to survive.I expect the person would now have a 99% chance for survival as still some traitors could reveal his location.
Ask Osama Bin Ladin he will guide you better.
;-)

[Marijn]

Thank you : )