What if the icepack on Antarctica melted?

By how much would the water level rise?

By how much would sea levels rise if the icepack on Antarctica melted? The icepack on Antarctica is over 2 km thick on average. The land area of Antarctica is about 5.4 million square miles and the surface area of the earth is about 196.9 million square miles. This means that Antarctica’s surface area is roughly 2.7 % that of the earth. About 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean. Hence, if all the icepack on Antarctica melted, and the water was added to the oceans, it would raise the ocean levels by: 2000 x 0.027 / 0.7 meters = 77 meters. Even if we cover the melt water over the whole of the earth’s surface, the water level increase would be 2000 x 0.027 meters = 54 meters. This means that if the icepack on Antarctica melted, almost all coastal towns on earth would be under water.