All the World's Water in a Big Cube

By Ben • infographics, maps, science • 1 Oct 2013

What would it look like if you took all of the Earth's water and put it into a huge cube? Well, like this:

And if you broke it down into fresh water, drinkable water, river water, and Great Lakes water:

 

That doesn't really look like that much water, but the height of the cubes is much higher than anything on Earth. For instance, the cube of river water would be 6.5 miles on a side, which would "sit comfortably on top of Queens and Brooklyn-" which sounds tiny, but it would also be 6.5 miles high- almost a mile and a half taller than Mt. Everest.

All Earth's water fits in a cube 693 miles on a side. That length & width doesn't seem too crazily huge. The height, on the other hand, is much higher than you'd think. The International Space Station would unceremoniously splash into the cube just over a third of the way up the cube's total height.

Still a great visualization.

by wait but why

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