Illustration of the volume of all the Earth's water

[stuntcat]

The drawings below show various blue spheres representing relative amounts of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. Are you surprised that these water spheres look so small? They are only small in relation to the size of the Earth. These images attempt to show three dimensions, so each sphere represents "volume." Overall, it shows that in comparison to the volume of the globe the amount of water on the planet is very small - and the oceans are only a "thin film" of water on the surface.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/gallery/global-water-volume.html

[JimDandy]

1. What a great graphic!

I put it in my Favs folder. Thanks.

[TheProgressive]

2. Shows how precious water is...

[limpyhobbler]

5. +1

[tech3149]

3. That is truly a keeper

Thanks so much for posting it. I get frantic on the subject when industrial or commercial operations think that water is an endless resource and governments don't know enough to protect a resource that we all need to live.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Well, it IS a renewable resource.....

It's just that the water we know how to use at this moment really isn't quite so endless....most of that comes from rivers and glaciers.

[Speck Tater]

4. I'd be intersted in seeing the volume of earth's AIR for comparison

I have a hunch it would be amazingly small as well, since it's a shell thinner than the skin of an apple, by scale.

[stuntcat]

6. I would like that too.

This tiny layer of air..
I wish everyone would spend a moment of each day thinking of how thin this nice slice of life is,
And also of how fast we're moving through space! When I think of these things too much I actually get dizzy lol

[Speck Tater]

8. People don't seem to realize...

that you can damn near stand on a step ladder and reach your fingers into the vacuum of space.

Well, maybe not. But the skin of air is frighteningly thin. The troposhpere is 7km thick at the poles (a bit thicker at the equator), but that's only 4.4 miles!

That's twice the length of Central Park!

That's the length of two runways at LAX airport!

That's shorter than the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Fransisco!

That's 1/5th the length of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, St. Petersburg, Florida!