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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."

5 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Damn it. Be scientific by smash · · Score: 0, Troll

    Never mind the fact that SI units actually work in a sane, base 10 oriented way...

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    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  2. Re:Evaporation? by sconeu · · Score: 0, Troll

    By every measure I've heard of the earth is supposedly getting heavier

    That's because of the USians.

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    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  3. Re:Is that so hard? by Lehk228 · · Score: 0, Troll

    simple solution, ban corporations

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    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  4. Re:I estimate by The+Hatchet · · Score: 0, Troll

    I don't trust any of them, but sometimes at least their sources check out. With Fox, there isn't even that decency.

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    Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also, ...
  5. Re:And soon ... by ksemlerK · · Score: 0, Troll

    Mod UP! Because it's true! The IPCC is nothing more then a left-wing scare industry that has been disproven tens of times. (ClimateGate anybody?)