Monday, March 25, 2013

All The Water On Earth



If you could pull all the water in the ocean, the atmosphere, and on top of or beneath the surface of Earth into a ball, it would measure only about 950 (1,500km) miles across. 

By comparison, the moon is 2,160 (3,475km) in diameter. Of this, only about 3 percent is freshwater, and of that only about two-thirds is in a form or a location that is easily accessible to humans. 

(Animation by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

E055330-Global_water_and_air_volume-SPL


Fabulous image representing “all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc.”, on a single sphere.

In the same scale, at right, “all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density.”

It’s by Adam Nieman / Science Photo Library (US). Some have doubted the accuracy of the graphic, but Dan Phiffer (check the link above) also updated his post with more info verifying that the representation is correct.




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