Slashdot Mirror
New Estimates Say Earth's Oceans Smaller Than Once Believed
Velcroman1 writes with this snippet from Fox News: "Using lead weights and depth sounders, scientists have made surprisingly accurate estimates of the ocean's depths in the past. Now, with satellites and radar, researchers have pinned down a more accurate answer to that age-old query: How deep is the ocean? And how big? As long ago as 1888, John Murray dangled lead weights from a rope off a ship to calculate the ocean's volume — the product of area and mean ocean depth. Using satellite data, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute set out to more accurately answer that question — and found out that it's 320 million cubic miles. And despite miles-deep abysses like the Mariana Trench, the ocean's mean depth is just 2.29 miles, thanks to the varied and bumpy ocean floor."
So, what were the earlier estimates? I'm on Slashdot => I did not RTFA.
Do they consider the effect of evaporation? Earth loses some of its atmosphere to space constantly and it's not too improbable that some water vapor is also lost in this way...
And soon it's average depth will be 2.29 miles plus a foot or two, according to the IPCC.
Well, it was more volumous. But all those sponges soaked up so much.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
After reading the article (SHOCKING!)
I wonder if they could get ships to carry a device to collect depth and undersea mountain patterns and then aggregate the data later. Might be cheaper the 2 billion dollars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
is whether they calculated the mean depth by assuming the oceans are flat with varying depth, or assuming it is spherical.
At only 2.29 miles mean depth, you'd think BP could have found a shallower place to drill.
From Article: It would take 10 ships 20 years to measure all the ocean-floor depths with an echsounder, according to published U.S. Navy estimates.
"That would come to about $2 billion," Smith says. "NASA is spending more than that on a probe to [the Jupiter moon] Europa."
Right, it costs more to send something into space. There are a lot of scientific pursuits less expensive that space travel. I'm confused...what's this comparison trying to say?
If the quote had been "Nasa is spending less than that on a probe....", then it would have offered commentary on how prohibitively expensive the project is (if true). Instead, it costs less to image the earth than image Europa. What are they saying?
For all you metric fans out there, the volume 320 × 10^6 cubic miles is approx. 133.4 × 10^7 cubic km with an average depth of 3.69 km.
BP
for suggesting climate change deniers will jump all over this as proof of their POV in 3...2...1...
320 million cubic miles = 1.33381818 × 10^18 m3
For fuck's sake, use scientific SI units regarding scientific topics.
The same imperial, US-only nonsense unit have cost a NASA probe...
2.29 miles isn't even 1 league! I thought the ocean was 20,000 leagues deep!
Could these numbers be confirmed by gravimetric measurements of the tides? The moon, sun, and to a very small extent the planet Jupiter, raise tides in the ocean and induce a gravitational moment. It seems like we could measure that and use it to approximate the mass of the oceans and therefore their volume, though off the top of my head I'm not sure about the details.
Yes, IIRC by the same mechanism Venus has a lot of relatively heavier elements (Carbon, Oxygen, Sulfur), but barely any Hydrogen if you compare it to Earth and count the oceans as part of the atmosphere.
Water (gas) is split by solar radiation higher up, and the light hydrogen is carried upwards, and some of these particles bump into each other and often enough these bumps add up to escape velocity for one particle. Supposedly solar winds also play a significant role, and as Mars and Venus don't have a magnetic field anymore to protect them, over the eons all the hydrogen was lost. One more factor for the Drake Equation!
Fox News will retract this story once they realize that it increases the percentage of the ocean filled with oil. And then denigrate the scientists involved as Marxists.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Erm, 12,000 feet is pretty damn deep water.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Do they include the extreme edge of the oceans (i.e. beaches) where the 'depth' is only a few millimeters? Or do they go out to sea a standard distance before they start measuring?
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
two breadboxes even!
"A big enough box could hold the world" -- Carl Sanburg
We must stop global warming!! Our oceans are getting smaller, we, um, need to, uh, what?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I have a challenge for you all: if the earth were a perfectly smooth sphere but with the same volume of dirt/rock as it is now, how deep would the ocean covering its surface be? (Assume no gravitational effects of the moon or whatever - just a sphere of dirt/rock, and an ocean of equal depth everywhere.)
I never thought I'd see the day when /. links to fox news.
It's a fairly well written article though. I'd say it's head and shoulders above anything they've linked to on Tom's Hardware, but that's not saying much.
moox. for a new generation.
That's a lot of bread...
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
How much oil would it take to pollute 320 million cubic miles of seawater?
Having lived their entire lives without seeing the ocean, two old women take a trip to the Pacific coast. Upon arriving on the beach, one looks out toward the horizon and says to the other, "That's funny, I thought it would be bigger."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"To make a box big enough to hold the world from scratch, you must first invent the universe" - Carl Sagan
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
For the 640 billion people who have no idea what the fuck a mile is, here is your public translation service. The ocean's volume is about 1300 million cubic kilometres, and the average ocean depth is about 3.7 Km.
That's 3.69 kilometers!
Have gnu, will travel.
640 billion people? I suppose new estimates say Earth's population is larger than once believed...
Shit, I forgot the dot. 6.40 billion people. Sorry, too late to be awake.
I don't know guys, these is coming from FOX news. Reminds me of the kind of "the universe isn't really 18 billion years old, more like 5000" or "the earth is really 4 billion years old, its more like 5000" or "the universe isn't THAT big, its really only us in the center with a bunch of crystal spheres" or "the earth isn't that big, if you try to sail around it, you will just fall off the edge" or ...
Maybe FOX got it from a real news source, but I don't trust FOX.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Shit, I forgot the dot. 6.40 billion people. Sorry, too late to be awake.
That``s just a bit more than the most recent Tea Party event.
no he just screwed up the conversion to metric....
That's not what she said...
It's still wrong. For one thing, it's more like 6.697 now. More importantly, the zero on the end suggests two significant digits, which is much more accurate than your actual estimate. You should have written it as 6.4, or, preferably, 6.7.
Maybe FOX got it from a real news source, but I don't trust FOX.
That just means you're being brainwashed by a different news sources. You shouldn't trust ANY of them.
To be fair, government didn't force them to drill there. It disallowed drilling in some locations so the company evaluated risks and decided to drill there.
Now that we know how well they do evaluating risks, I am rather pleased that government put some restrictions on their drilling. Because it is clear that they choose a risk of a massive catastrophe if they believe that there are profits involved and can't be trusted in this matter. I just wish that the government(s) would have put much more restrictions in place.
It's still wrong.
No, it's not: 6.697 - 300 millions = 6.397
the zero on the end suggests two significant digits, which is much more accurate than your actual estimate. You should have written it as 6.4
Yeah, you're right.
640 B should be enough for any planet.
* ducks *
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
No, it's not: 6.697 - 300 millions = 6.397
Hah. Ok, fair enough.
No, he's not. 6.40 is the closest number within two decimal points.
valenzetti equation*
The post here is misleading on several counts.
First, the planet also gains water via asteroids and meteors that are captured via the gravity of the planet. There is speculation that this is the method by which most water on the planet arrived. The key to understanding this is realising that the planet was orbiting the Sun for a billion years or two before life appeared. That's a lot of time for it to be spinning around in space, accumulating water.
The second is that Mars still has a magnetic field, except that it is the configuration of it that causes gas to be lost:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/21nov_plasmoids/
Nice link, thanks. They still aren't sure exactly the method that caused Mars to lose its atmosphere, but that pages shows some interesting probabilities.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
By the counting method of hard drive companies, that would almost be a teraperson!
If we had a conservative in the White House the worlds oceans would be much deeper. Obama's version of radical politcal change has caused the worlds oceans to shrink. I am forcasting that by the end of Obama's first term in the White house the worlds oceans will have shrunk to the size of lake michigan, if he is allowed to remain in office they will shrink to the size of a rain puddle!! Beware America!!
Lucky for you, although half that number also have no idea what a kilometre is, they also have no idea about this news story.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
5.59297599 × 10^18 hogsheads 3.52357487 × 10^20 US gallons 1.33381818 × 10^21 litres
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Must be using the metric "billion."
Fox News will believe that scientists can measure the size of the ocean from satellite data, but start talking about temperatures and all bets are off!
if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.
Of course, now that people will be able to fish for oil right off the pier, shouldn't oil prices go down?
BTW - 640g people should be enough for everyone.
I don't trust any of them, but sometimes at least their sources check out. With Fox, there isn't even that decency.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
metric people
Folks who find the original post more interesting than the typical Slashdot discussion that followed might be interested in this recent work: Pressure-temperature Phase Diagram of the Earth
It discusses the possible range of "life as we know it" in the deep lithosphere.
Credo sim. - I think I am.
That's 640 billion metric people.
As far as i can tell he didn't limit his post to the Earth's population.
those are metric billions
The mass of the average American does skew the numbers a tad higher than otherwise would be predicted.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
640 billion people should be enough for anyone.
Sounds like some kind of fail to me. Then I see the people who viewed this also viewed "Democrats history of deceit" or something like that and I knew that yes, it really is a fail.
Just use the kiloyard. Sorted.
But remember, the litre isn't 1kg of water, it's about 1.0048kg of water.
Oh dear. Isn't THAT a terrible number!
If this is true, doesn't it mean the predicted ocean rises will all be considerably out?
Most people are taught that the ocean levels rise due to melting ice caps but thermal expansion of water is behind at least half of the predicted rise in ocean level.
If there's less water in the ocean, there'll be a smaller expansion.
Yes. Switching from lead weights and depth sounders to satellites and radar scientists were surprised to find that the earths population... .
It's a ditto of Rush Limbaugh.
dude for a one million kilometer cube would mean that there is a cube which has a side of one million kilometers X one million kilometers, which would fit about 60% of the volume of the sun inside.
its 1300 millin cubic meters.
Never mind that! It's probably coming from those same global warming eggheads! I demand an investigation of these "oceanographers"! Someone hack their email server now!
(sarcasm)
Someone had to do it.
Lucky for you, although half that number also have no idea what a kilometre is, they also have no idea about this news story.
That's 3.2 billions. There aren't that many Americans in the world. You need to get out more.
I don't trust any of them, but sometimes at least their sources check out. With Fox, there isn't even that decency.
Do you do regular fact checks on them, CNN, MSNBC, etc, and compare? What's your source? Making a wild claim out of the blue never helps a cause (even if it's about Fox news).
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Wow the metric system has a unit of measure for everything or did you mean 640 centipeople?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
To have its nature and import properly expressible, comprehensible, and accessible to the layman, the universe first had to, from the ashes of deads stars over billions and billions of years, invent Carl Sagan.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1658118&cid=32272368
Dude, you need to go back to primary school.
A cube with a side of one million kilometres would have a volume of 1 quintillion cubic kilometres.
I never watch MSNBC, and I do fact check CNN, with decent results. Typically I check through the scholarly databases or google scholar. Or in some cases, I can check a fact simply by testing it.
FOX posts a lot of interesting bullshit, the problem is that it all tends to be bullshit. MSNBC doesn't post anything worth checking or even watching, so I don't bother. FOX however always either misreads its source exaggerates, or flat out fucking lies. It is not a wild claim, and it is not out of the blue.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
"A big enough box could hold the world" -- Carl Sandburg
Where's your mom when we need her?
Bow-ties are cool.
As you have no idea of what you are talking about, i will make it simple.
A cube with a side of one meter has one cubic meter
therefore a cube with a side of one million kilometers has the volume of one million cubic kilometers
You are right, lets do some math
the area of oceans is given by 4*Pi*r
the radious of the earth is 6,371,000 meters
so we have an area of 510049428806000 square meters. 30% of that is land, so we get 357034600164200 square meters of water, times 3684,61 meters of mean deph you get 1315533258111012962 cubic meters, which is 1,315,533,258.1 cubic kilometers
the volume of the sun is as it follows
volume of a sphere is 4/3*pi*r
radius of the sun is 695500 KM so we get
1.409.182.378.024.416.666,66
which is one and one fourth quintillion cubic kilometers. and no way 60% of that is one million cubic kilometers
640 billion people?
That's converted to metric people.
I like it
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
I never watch MSNBC, and I do fact check CNN, with decent results. Typically I check through the scholarly databases or google scholar. Or in some cases, I can check a fact simply by testing it.
FOX posts a lot of interesting bullshit, the problem is that it all tends to be bullshit. MSNBC doesn't post anything worth checking or even watching, so I don't bother. FOX however always either misreads its source exaggerates, or flat out fucking lies. It is not a wild claim, and it is not out of the blue.
I never said Fox lying/misguiding was out of the blue, just the claim that they're far more errant than all of the other TV news networks. Being a popular thing to bash Fox, I am skeptical on how accurate this claim is. I know, I see debunks, reports of their false reporting, etc. I don't doubt those. I've seen it myself. However, I've seen some of the same with CNN, CNBC, ABC, and let's not even mention MSNBC.
While Fox give themselves a pass many hours of the day during their opinion shows intermixed in between during popular hours, I'm speaking only of their claimed "actual news" hours.
Until I see a long-term in-depth study, or at least something well logged, of what networks are more accurate than others, I won't buy any claim that one network is far worse at it than the other, especially one made by a random /.er claiming to fact-check everything all the news networks say.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
As you have no idea of what you are talking about, i will make it simple.
A cube with a side of one meter has one cubic meter
therefore a cube with a side of one million kilometers has the volume of one million cubic kilometers
Wrong. A cube with the side of one million kilometers would have the volume of (one million km)^3 = (one million)^3 km^3 = one quintillion km^3 = one quintillion cubic kilometers.
One million cubic kilometers is the volume of one million cubes with side length 1 km each. From one million such cubes you cannot build a cube with a side length of one million km.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Radar??? How is RADAR useful for measuring ocean volume??? The idiot author must have meant active SONAR right? Science reporting by the mainstream media is appalling. They are good at gossip and scandals and political correct-itudes but horrible at science. And they don't even known it.
There's easily 3.2 billion people in the world who have no idea what a mile or a kilometre is.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The interesting thing about this piece of information is that if the entire ocean were to be placed into a sphere, it would only have a radius of about 424 miles. This seems pretty small when you think about the size of the ocean.