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All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

usgs.gov

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Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#31

Post by FredPret »

moralestapia wrote: post #23
umvi wrote: post #16

> This sphere includes all of the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant. Does it include water in the mantle? ( https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=111648 ) or other non-liquid water for that matter like hydrates (ebsom salts, etc)

No, it doesn't. It includes all of the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.

"Groundwater" is a little ambiguous - H2O in the mantle is also "ground water", no?

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#32

Post by kevinkeller »

Largest ocean in our solar system isn't even on Earth, apparently:

> ... Ganymede’s ocean is even bigger than Europa’s—and might be the largest in the entire solar system. “The Ganymede ocean is believed to contain more water than the Europan one,” he says. “Six times more water in Ganymede’s ocean than in Earth's ocean, and three times more than Europa.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/overlooked-ocean-...

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#33

Post by moralestapia »

FredPret wrote: post #31
moralestapia wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. It includes all of the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.

"Groundwater" is a little ambiguous - H2O in the mantle is also "ground water", no?

It's not. The mantle is hundreds of kilometers further down.

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#34

Post by pfdietz »

FredPret wrote: post #31
moralestapia wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. It includes all of the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.

"Groundwater" is a little ambiguous - H2O in the mantle is also "ground water", no?

No, that "water" is actually hydroxyl groups in minerals.

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#36

Post by dylan604 »

stcredzero wrote: post #27
umvi wrote: post #16

> This sphere includes all of the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant. Does it include water in the mantle? ( https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=111648 ) or other non-liquid water for that matter like hydrates (ebsom salts, etc)

The sphere for all liquid water seems to be close in size to the asteroid Ceres. https://lightsinthedark.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ceres...

But would this sphere of water have enough mass to hold itself together as a sphere in space? Put aside it freezing into a ball of ice as a thought exercise.

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#37

Post by dylan604 »

maushu wrote: post #28
myself248 wrote: post #22

Turn Randall Munroe loose on this idea and be prepared for unspeakable devastation as a tsunami of Lovecraftian proportions wreaks havoc on the planet...

He already did it with a 1km diameter ball ( https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/ ) and the destruction was terrifying. Please keep him away from these other bigger water balls.

It was just a friendly game of water balloons. We had no intent of destroying your planet.

Re: All of Earth's water in a single sphere (2019)

#39

Post by akira2501 »

rmah wrote: post #30

Just a few quick calculations to make it more relatable... They say the smallest sphere of freshwater lakes and rivers amounts to 93,113 cu km. There are 1 bil cu m per cu km. With a global population of 8.2 bil people, that comes to 11,355 cu m per person. That's a 22.5 meter wide/deep/tall cube (or about 7 or 8 stories tall building). If we use the sphere that includes groundwater, 10,633,450 cu km. Then we end up…

Also.. the largest sphere has a radius of about 92 miles. It reaches to the edge of the atmosphere, and about 1/3 of the way to low earth orbit.
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