Size of Earth compared to size of all Earth’s water,
including obvious sources like
oceans and lakes,
but also from your atmosphere,
you, your dog, and your tomato plant…,
if the water were formed into one globeThe blue sphere (representing all Earth’s water) sitting on USA, 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).
- About 3,100 cubic miles (12,900 cubic kilometers) of water, mostly as water vapor, is in the atmosphere at any time. If it all precipitated at once, Earth would be covered with only about an inch of water.
- If all the world’s water was poured on USA, it would cover land, 90 miles deep (145 kilometers).
Learn more: http://goo.gl/Qr33O
Penn State Water Resources Website
Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USGS
Data sources from Igor Shiklomanov’s chapter “World fresh water resources” in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources; and The Hydrologic Cycle, USGS pamphlet, 1984
I would have guessed that the water globe would be bigger. What would you have guessed?
