I was mulling this chart over today, while the excellent presentation by Dr. Tim Foresman was still fresh in my mind from Coventry last week. Tim referenced one point in particular with regards to the amount of actual water on the planet (see right) as a percentage of the entire earth's mass. More detail about the picture (from the Science Photo Library).
Global water volume. Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of the Earth's water, seen as a sphere, centred over Europe. It dramatically shows how finite the water supply on Earth actually is. The sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. These figures were calculated by adding the volumes of water in the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, ground water and water in both ice caps and the atmosphere. The largest percentage (97%) of water is held in the oceans, with ice caps & glaciers accounting for a further 2%. The average depth of the ocean is 3.8 kilometres.
You can't help but be concerned. I will save the short-shower and small-flush dialog for some other post.
Christian,
When I first read your post I thought I must have misunderstood something. The image of the Earth and the text didn't seem to match up in my mind. Upon a second read my thought was that you must have posted the wrong image. It wasn't until the third read that I uttered "oh s***!" That is an unbelievable image. Thanks for posting.
Posted by: Jeff Monaghan | September 22, 2007 at 03:38 PM