Message-Id: <l03102804b28ab90c1698@[209.142.17.12]>
In-Reply-To: <199812020813.AAA19119@mail.inreach.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 02:01:02 -0800
To: "Pinhole Listserv" <pinhole@exploratorium.edu>
From: Ronald Wong <ronwong@inreach.com>
Subject: Re: volume of the oceans
Nick Alesandro <npa100@yahoo.com> said:
>I need a factoid!
>
>Does anyone possess an estimate of the volume of water in the earth's
>oceans? Failing that, how about an estimate of the total volume of
>all the water in the world...
Here's are a few factoids (the numbers vary from publication to publication):
1. The world's oceans cover about 71 percent of the world's surface.
2. If you include the shallow seas with the deep oceans, the average depth is
3.8 km.
3. If you only consider the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans, the average
depth is 4 km
4. 97 % of the water is in the oceans. Only 2 % is locked up in the form of
ice.
And all of the fresh water in the world is the miniscule 1 % that is left
(ponder that one for a little while).
5. Oh yes, the volume: 1.4 billion cubic kilometers (for a mass, in kilograms,
of about 1.4 X 10 to the 21st power).
A good encyclopedia would probably have this information. If you had all
the time in the world (or you are a whiz with search engines) you would
also have probably found it on the WWW - somewhere, sometime. I got the
above info from a book on physical geography. It's been sitting around here
gathering dust for the last 25 years (I just knew it would come in handy
one day).
Enjoy. ron