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."

Comments

Re:Evaporation?

[w0mprat]

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?