Water is not a dry subject!

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

About three billion years ago, after more than one and a half billion years of cooling down, the Earth became blanketed with a dense cloud that included much hydrogen and oxygen. It continued to cool further until the gases surrounding it combined and condensed into water, which fell as rain.

And God said, Let the water under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.

The downpour continued unabated for about 60,000 years, filling the ocean basins and the lowlands with an estimated 326 million cubic miles of water. However much is used, polluted or wasted, the Earth retains all of the water that was ever created.

Just how much water is there?

326 million cubic miles of water total.

More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water.

97% is salt water contained in the Oceans.

3% is freshwater which is found in rivers, lakes, inland seas, atmosphere and underground.

3/4 of all freshwater, or 7 million cubic miles, is inaccessible in ice caps and glaciers.

Only 500 cubic miles or 125 million acre feet, which is only 0.0002% of the total or 0.001% of the freshwater, is readily available for use by humans and in agriculture and industry.

What effect will "global warming" have on the water supply?

If global warming proceeds as predicted, the ice caps and glaciers will gradually melt causing the sea level to rise nearly 30 feet worldwide. When this occurs, costal cities like Boston and New York will be visited only by deep sea divers. Maybe with that much water around Lake Bonneville will even return! But don’t build your ark yet, it will take more than 10,000 years to happen if it happens at all.

Just why does ice float on the very water from which it came?

One of the most amazing phenomenon associated with water is its behavior as it cools toward the freezing point. Almost universally, materials contract as they cool, reaching their greatest density at freezing. Not so with water!

Like any other liquid, it contracts as it cools down, but only to 4 degrees Celsius. At this point it begins to expand until it freezes at zero degrees Celsius. This expansion decreases its density; therefore the ice that results takes more space than the water from which it was derived. A cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds, while a cubic foot of ice weighs 56.9 pounds, a difference of about 5.5 pounds. The lighter ice will float on the heaver water. The physical expansion of water when it changes into ice is so powerful that will break nearly anything that gets in its way.

(Source: Deseret News, March 30, 2000 "Our Fascinating Earth")

World ocean map goes online

June 5, 2002 Posted: 1:42 PM EDT (1742 GMT)


The world's oceans play a critical role in sustaining life on Earth

Staff and wires

UNITED NATIONS -- In an effort to focus attention on the failing health of the world's oceans the United Nations has marked World Environment Day with the launch online of a global marine atlas.

The atlas will be continuously updated and is designed to track the state of ocean resources including threats to the marine environment such as over-fishing and the effects of climate change on the Earth's ice caps, as well as ship piracy, the spread of poisonous algae and offshore oil.

The 14 global maps which form the basis of the electronic atlas, maintained by a coalition of scientific institutions working around the world with the U.N., came out of a commitment made a decade ago at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

"This is a very ambitious and important partnership for monitoring, diagnosing and we hope helping to heal the great oceans of the world," said former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, who heads the U.N. Foundation which provided the main $500,000 grant to fund the project.

RESOURCES

CNN StudentNews: Oceans: Deep blue sea

Among the major concerns are the unsustainable exploitation of the world's marine resources -- primarily fish stocks -- and the effects of climate change on global sea levels.

These issues are expected to dominate international efforts into the future, if as predicted, global warming melts more ice and causes the oceans, which cover more than 70 percent of the earth's surface, to rise by up to 3.3 feet.

Threatened coasts

In the United States alone such a rise could drown some 17,000 square km (6,630 square miles) of coastal areas -- approximately the size of Connecticut and New Jersey combined.


Overfishing is threatening many of world's key fishing grounds

In China such a rise could affect over 70 million people, 60 percent of the population of Bangladesh and the Netherlands, 15 percent of the people and 50 percent of the industry in Japan and 10 percent of the population of Egypt, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which led the initiative said.

In low-lying countries like the Maldives or the Marshall Islands, the entire population would be at risk.

"The oceans play a crucial role in sustaining life on earth," said Jacques Diouf, director general of the FAO.

"This important new tool ... will help coordinate and harmonize the work underway in various parts of the U.N. and in national agencies, academic institutions and other organizations, and will serve a major role in moving the world toward the sustainable use of oceans for food security and human development," he said.

The launch of the ocean atlas comes as Australia announced it would not ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Changing weather

Gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are blamed for rising temperatures and changing weather patterns across the globe.


Coastal communities around the planet are under threat from rising seas

Fifty-five nations producing 55 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions must ratify the pact before it becomes binding.

Japan ratified the treaty this week and urged nations like Russia and the United States, the world's biggest polluter, to sign up.

In a U.S. government report issued Friday, the administration acknowledged for the first time that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would increase significantly over the next two decades, due mainly to human activities.

It forecast that U.S. total greenhouse gas emissions would increase 43 percent between 2000 and 2020.

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