A Picture is Worth... Water & Air, All of It
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 02.29.08
Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. Shown on the same scale as the Earth.
::Dan Phiffer, via ::reddit
See also: ::Chinese Water: A Picture is Worth..., ::A Picture is Worth... Air Pollution in China
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That is a neat concept, but I am really having trouble with the ball of water. I'd like to know more about how Dan made his calculations for the scale and if anyone has double checked them? If the ball of water was bigger, it would still be an impressive, but more believable pic.
So even without water, Greenland is white. hmm ... what a trip
This is one of the coolest pics I've seen in awhile. If the water proportion is correct, it's rather intimidating.
@Alison
His calculations are correct... should be a sphere with a diameter of ~900 miles as shown.
Here's some quick calculations:
Water:
Earth Radius is 6.3E6 m.
Surface Area is 4.9E14 m^2.
Average ocean depth is 3800 m.
water covers 75% of the surface.
Volume of water is 1.4E18 m^3.
Radius of water ball is 6.9E5 m.
So the ball of water has a diameter about 10% of the earth.
Air:
Air pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level.
14.7 lb is 6.7 kg.
1 square inch is about 6.3E-4 m^2.
Total kg of air is 5.2E18 kg.
Density at sea level is 1.2 kg/m^3.
Volume of air at sea level pressure is 4.3E18 m^3.
Radius of ball of air is 1.0E6 m.
So the ball of air has a diamter of about 16% of the earth.
Looks good to me.
Eric.
When seen like this it becomes easily believable that the entirety of Earth's water could have come from a single impact with a watery comet many millions of years ago.
This is vary importaint. I don't think I would have even concitered it at all.
That is truly amazing when placed to scale like that. Great work
Wow, small world! The atmosphere is so thin and the oceans so shallow relative to the mass of the Earth.
What we depend on sure looks vulnerable.
so .... everyone on earth please DO NOT waste and pollute our water and air anymore. Water and air is far far ..... more important than that piece of shit (money). If we don't do it now, our children will see a much smaller water and air sphere and you will regret forever !