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Lake Superior has enough water to flood all of North and South America to almost one foot.
by 557833 10y ago
Lake Superior has enough water to flood all of North and South America to almost one foot.
- giarc 10y agoWas intrigued by this comment so I looked it up. North and South America have a surface area of about 42.55 million sq km or 4.58x10^14 sq ft (1 foot deep water is obviously 4.58x10^14 cubic feet). Lake Superior has a volume of 12,100 cubic km or 4.2x10^14 cubic feet. That's unbelievable!
- dekhn 10y agonow do the calculations on lake baikal.
- bryondowd 10y agoAbout 8.12x10^14 cubic feet, so about 1.77 feet spread over all of the Americas.
- motoboi 10y agoWhat about Guarani Aquifer?
- brownbat 10y agoA little over 3 feet. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(40,000+cubic+kilometres+%2F+42.55+million+sq+km)+in+feet http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(40,000+cubic+kilometre... To skip ahead, the Great Artesian Basin, the largest artesian basin in the world, would be just over 5 feet. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(64,900+cubic+kilometres+%2F+(area+of+north+america+%2B+area+of+south+america))+in+feet http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(64,900+cubic+kilometre... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Artesian_Basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Artesian_Basin
- droopyEyelids 10y agoHow much fracking liquid could we pump in there and remain profitable?
- brownbat 10y agoYou're pumping in what's (loosely) soapy water to extract water. And in places where there's mostly positive pressure anyway. None?
- brownbat 10y agoI like that Wolfram Alpha will just do this one for you: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+lake+superior+%2F+(area+of+north+america+%2B+area+of+south+america) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+lake+superior... It struggles with the more esoteric aquifers, and doesn't understand "North and South America" as an object, but still pretty cool.
- amelius 10y agoBut according to Wikipedia, Lake Superior has an average depth of 483 ft. So take the area of the lake and multiply it by 483, and now it is not surprising that you can cover North+South America with it.
- sfifs 10y agoI read the post title and thought "huh that's all?". Then I read your comment! Also puts into perspective just how much water there is on earth.
- 2Pacalypse- 10y agoHere is another way to put it into perspective[0]: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/pictures/full-size/global-water-volume-fresh-large.jpg http://water.usgs.gov/edu/pictures/full-size/global-water-vo... [0] - http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html
- cyberferret 10y agoExactly the same here. Love it when something that is simply too large for comprehension is reframed in an easy to understand way.
- astrodust 10y agoThat lake is not just huge, but crazy deep. It's bigger than the state of Maine in terms of area and in places is deeper than the Empire State Building is tall. Or in other words, imagine turning Maine into a fishtank forty stories high that's full of fresh water.
- jessewmc 10y agoYet another perspective: From http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html in 2010 306 billion gallons of fresh water per day used in the united states. Volume of Lake Superior is very roughly 3,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. V Lake Superior / (306 * 10^12 * 365) = 26.86 years About 27 years of entire US water supply assuming no water cycle. Now that I do the math (hopefully I didn't screw it up), I'm not sure that's a big number or a small one actually.
- leojg 10y agoIts big... take in account the inefficient water management that we have and that a martian colony would be numbered in the thousands, at best. This is basically unlimited reserves!
- superdude 10y agoReally puts into perspective how much water is in the great lakes!
- rubyn00bie 10y agoOr... cover the surface of mars with ~ 3 inches (8 cm) of water.