Has anyone seen these pictures before? This is quite amazing, graphical representations of total water and air volumes of the earth. It's really hard to believe, puts it in across in such an interesting way.
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Global air volume. Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of air within the Earth's atmosphere, seen as a sphere, centred over Europe. It dramatically shows how finite the available air supply actually is. The sphere measures 1999 kilometres across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. Although the atmosphere extends hundreds of kilometres above the Earth's surface, its density decreases progressively. Half of all the air in the atmosphere lies within the first 5 kilometres. Air is a mixture of gases that includes nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%). The reminder is made up of argon, carbon dioxide, neon and helium.
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Global water volume. Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of the Earth's water, seen as a sphere, centred over North America. 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 and glaciers accounting for a further 2%. The average depth of the ocean is 3.8 kilometres.
I still shake my head in disbelief when I look at these pictures. I saw it on QI tonight, pictures by Adam Nieman.
