Science questions for kids | If Greenland melted into the sea, how much would the water level rise?

Iisa Tuuli, 8

of Greenland the continental glacier has 2.74 million gigatons of ice. A gigatonne means a billion tonnes.

There is so much ice that if it all melted, the surface of the oceans would rise on average about 7.4 meters.

Greenland’s ice cover is currently decreasing by melting from the surface and breaking off from the edges. The icebergs that break off the edges then melt in the sea.

The decrease has recently accelerated, but the ice is still being lost relatively slowly compared to the mass of the entire Greenland ice sheet. At the current rate, about 271 gigatons of ice are lost per year. At this rate, it would take about 10,111 years for the entire ice sheet to melt.

So even if the melting were to speed up, it would still take thousands of years for all of Greenland to melt.

When the ice melts, the water that ends up in the sea is also not evenly distributed over the earth. Because the mass of ice currently in Greenland attracts water, the sea water in the vicinity of Greenland is higher than it would be if there were no ice.

So in the future, the sea level will actually fall near Greenland, and due to the melting of Greenland, the water level will rise the most far away from it, i.e. in the Pacific Ocean, for example.

Aleksi Nummelin

research professor

weather Institute

Why do the good guys win in all movies and shows?

Lumi Koski, 8

Countless the core of films and programs is to create emotional states in the viewers. Most of us watch movies primarily to experience emotions.

Many characters evoke similar sympathetic feelings in viewers as our friends and family members do.

The creators of films and programs strive to create characters that viewers can identify with. By identifying, they become emotionally attached to the events of the film.

Our feelings are based on our moral concepts, that is, our views on what is good and bad and right and wrong. We often want the good guys to win and the bad guys to be punished at the end of the story.

However, that doesn’t mean that the good guys always win. Especially in art films, filmmakers often don’t make a happy ending in order to evoke more complex emotions and moral considerations in the audience.

Tarja Laine

assistant professor of film studies

University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Where does the word blue blood come from, even though blood is red?

Unto Järvitalo, 7

in Finland and in many other European languages ​​people belonging to the highest social class are called blue-blooded. It is especially used in connection with royalty and nobles.

The designation originated in the Middle Ages, i.e. many hundreds of years ago, in Spain.

In this case, the light-skinned people who belonged to the highest families of Castile, or the ancient Spanish Kingdom, wanted to distinguish themselves from the Arabs, Africans and other dark-skinned populations.

The blood is red, but the blood vessels you can hear under the pale skin look blue. The light skin of the Castilians was a hereditary trait, which was accentuated when the nobility did not have to do outdoor work and tan in the sun.

That pallor, considered fine, was described with an expression Sangre Azul, which means azure blood. Its translation in French is Sang bleu ja in English blue blood. In Germany, blue blood is blaublütig and in Sweden blåblodig.

The expression was translated into Finnish at the end of the 19th century. At first, it was used in entertainment literature translated into Finnish and in small news stories about conditions in foreign countries.

Kaisa Häkkinen

professor of the Finnish language

University of Turku

Do birds ever poop hard?

Hilma Lehtinen, 6

I am observed and studied birds for more than 50 years, and I have never seen them constipated in the wild, i.e. that they had to “suddenly” in order to get the poo to come.

I haven’t found harder than normal excrement in the terrain either.

Birds very often half-carelessly drop the pot while walking or flying. Many of them even defend the nest with excrement bombardment. Such a thing wouldn’t work if the stomach was hard.

In most birds, the excrement is a rather loose mess. For example, ptarmigan and grouse eat such woody plant food in the winter that even the excrement is quite hard and plant parts can be seen in it.

The intestines of birds are quite short, which prevents the poo from hardening. In addition, the birds’ poo is softened by the fact that their urine and feces mix in the so-called drain gut before coming out of the same hole.

Birds living in aviaries and pet birds can sometimes rarely become constipated. If this happens, it is the result of improper nutrition or diseases. For example, chickens may sometimes become constipated if they end up eating chicken litter.

Esa Hohtola

Emeritus Professor of Animal Physiology

University of Oulu

Send the question, the questioner’s full name and age to [email protected]. The column is edited by Touko Kauppinen and Juha Merimaa.