Eugene Moraine, age 12, of North Kansas City, Mo., for his question:

What would happen if all the ice of Antarctica melted?

Teams of scientists from 12 nations recently made an on the spot probe of Antarctica's massive icecap. Their work is vitally important to all of us, for the frigid south polar region affects much of the world's weather, the ocean currents and the flood level of all the seas.

In July, 1951, the Missouri and Kaw rivers spi11ed over into Kansas City, Mo. The water rose one and two stories high in the west bottomlands. The railroad tracks and the famous stockyards were flooded, and hundreds of cattle were drowned. Within a few days the trespassing waters had swept away to the sea, and people were scooping out their cars and homes from under soggy layers of mud.

This flood was a mere puddle compared with the rising deluge that would flood the world from the me1ted ice of Antarctica. But Kansas City would not be doused in this deluge. It could, however, expect a flood of refugees from the lower ground along the coastlines. Antarctica could provide enough ice to cover Missouri with a layer 70 miles thick. If this volume of ice melted, its waters would raise the present level of the ocean 200 feet.

Experts, however, suggest that other factors might modify this deluge somewhat. The weight of the icecap is enormous. If its pressure Were removed, the land below might rise or the seabed might sink. Such a change would reduce the rise in the world wide sea level to 130 feet. But this swollen ocean still would swallow vast lowlands and would change and shrink the map lines of all the continents. Millions of square miles would be lost in North America. Miles of shoreline along the Arctic and Pacific would move inland, and the Atlantic would reach the Appalachians. The rising seas might claim Washington, D.C., and submerge the White house. As the Gulf Coast retreated inland, the mouth of the Mississippi would move northward.

But no one need drown in the drastic deluge. The 12 million square mile icecap would take ages to melt, and the ocean would rise only a few inches a century. People in the drowning zones would have generations of warning to move themselves to higher ground.

The Arctic glaciers are shrinking, and our seas are now rising some 2 inches a century. Recent surveys may show that the southern icecap is melting, too. In perhaps 50,000 years the Fairfax Airport in Kansas City may stand 652 feet above Sea level instead of its present 746 feet. Taum Peak in the Ozarks would then have an elevation of 1,642 feet instead of 1,772 feet.