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New Estimates Say Earth's Oceans Smaller Than Once Believed

Posted by timothy on from the deeper-than-my-love-for-you dept.

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."

6 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. What were the earlier estimates? by cytoman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Using satellite data, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) set out to more accurately answer that question -- and found out that it's 320 million cubic miles.

    So, what were the earlier estimates? I'm on Slashdot => I did not RTFA.

    1. Re:What were the earlier estimates? by maxume · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1 cubic mile is about 26 billion barrels.

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  2. Evaporation? by cytoman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:Evaporation? by Narcocide · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Don't panic, it's not very fast, but we DO need to encase it, ourselves and the sun in a giant Dyson Sphere soon to mitigate the problem.

    2. Re:Evaporation? by w0mprat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      While it's true we lose some gas at the top of our atmosphere, earth is probably sufficiently large that we have a net growth due to meteorite bombardment. (By every measure I've heard of the earth is supposedly getting heavier). We may take on extra H2O from water ice in meteroids?

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  3. Where do that start measuring? by Itninja · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

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