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Rescooped by Michelle Kinzel from Geography Education onto GIS in Education
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If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere

If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere | GIS in Education | Scoop.it
From ga.water.usgs.gov - May 11, 2012 10:55 AM
If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere, from the USGS Water Science School...

 

"This picture shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant."

 

The sphere does not include the potential water that some scientists believe may be trapped in the mantle (and thus not accessible on the surface).  For more about water that is not on or near the surface, see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0307_0307_waterworld.html


Via Seth Dixon
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Gary Robertson's comment, May 7, 2012 9:36 PM
Water is also tied up in hydrated minerals in the rocks of the earth's crust. While not "free" it is still significant and is occasionally freed through subduction and volcanic activity. Furthermore, the earth's mantle may contain even more water than the rest combined! So, maybe the Single Sphere should be larger by more than the cube root of 2, or about 1,083 miles in diameter. See mantle water data at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0307_0307_waterworld.html
Seth Dixon's comment, May 7, 2012 11:08 PM
Thanks Green Uncle Mary! I mean Mean Uncle Gary!
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Rescooped by Michelle Kinzel from Geography Education
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Extreme Weather and Drought Are Here to Stay

Extreme Weather and Drought Are Here to Stay | GIS in Education | Scoop.it
From www.nytimes.com - August 21, 2012 11:43 PM
It is increasingly clear that we already live in the era of human-induced climate change, with unprecedented weather and climate extremes.

 

I don't delight in sharing the bad news.  So is this drought just a freak anomaly or a sign of a new normal?


Via Seth Dixon
Seth Dixon's comment, August 13, 2012 2:28 PM
The graphic was not connected to the article. It was linked on a PBS facebook page and I linked the juxtaposition of the graphic and the NY Times article. Here is the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/EarthTheOperatorsManual.Page Personally, an entire century as a baseline of comparison does not feel like cherrypicking data. True the Earth is an incredibly complex system that controlling for all variables is in essence impossible, but denying that the system has changed seems foolish to me. Why has the system changed? I'm okay with that being a reasonable debate worthy of academics.
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