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... it's about as much water as this place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)
It would use up roughly the same volume , but it'd be a lot more water . (Much heavier, I suspect, as well.)
https://www.technology.org/how-and-why/what-would-happen-if-....
So I feel like the USGS is exagerated.
Imagine the headline:
500 million gallons of water expected to melt this year
1.2 microspheres of seawater expected to melt this yearThe height of the sphere isn’t easy to visualize, should over lay height of water over Americas area
- I know the US contains hundreds of millions of people, and the world contains a single-digit number of billions. So the US has about 10% of the world's people.
- The US probably isn't particularly dense or sparse relative to other populated areas, so 1/10 the population should be 1/10 the Earth's land area.
- The Earth has twice as much ocean as land, and
- The ocean is a few miles deep - let's say 5 - so there's about 10 miles of ocean depth per land area.
- So compressing that to 1/10th the land area suggests the oceans should cover the US to a depth of about 100 miles.
The exact answer, it turns out, is about 89 miles - really close, without looking up a single piece of information!
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28332%2C500%2C000+cubi...
> 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)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The largest sphere represents all of Earth's water. Its diameter is about 860 miles Should be a radius of 430 miles, no? The image is very non-intuitive, IMO, because it's making the water appear so small compared to the entire planet (which, duh, obviously the water is only part of earth), but also drawing the planet that small really hides how friggin big the earth is!
"All the Earth's FRESH Water"
Not sure this is accurate as we've discovered that water can reside deeper in the Earth than previously imagined and in addition to that the density of water at the surface is different than at the bottom of the ocean. I suppose they are also accounting for the salt being removed too. But my argument is probably in the margin of error so what do I know? https://www.technology.org/how-and-why/what-would-happen-if-...…
The oceans are only about 3.5% salt by weight, so that doesn't make a huge difference, either.