How much ice is there on the Earth?
Most of the Earth’s ice that we see is to be found in large masses of “nearly” pure ice (due consideration must be given to the aspects described above): ice-sheets and glaciers of various types, ice shelves and sea ice packs. It is quite easy to calculate the surface of the areas covered with ice: it has been calculated that this amounts to approximately 15 million km2, equal to one tenth of the surface of the Earth’s emersed land. It is more difficult, on the contrary, to calculate the volume of ice because the thickness of the entire covered area must be known: using special techniques it is possible to measure the ice thickness in various points of a glacier and therefore to estimate the volume. For example the average thickness of the Antarctic sheet is 2,100 m, with peaks of 4,800 m in Land of Wilkes, in the Eastern sector: with a surface of little less than 13,600,000 km2, the total volume of the Antarctic ice is 30 million km3. Someone had fun calculating that this is equivalent to 9×1016 ice cubes!
Special reports
-
10 December 2019
In the fridge of the world
Antarctica is a continent with a very particular charm...
-
15 April 2014
How rich are we …. in blue gold?
Water footprint, water availability and use on a planetary scale...
8 July 2022
Who’s coming to dinner
A shark in my hamburger Summer is finally here! As usual, we have waited for it all year long and…
7 October 2021
Water grabbing
“Clear, sweet fresh water,” wrote Petrarch, by many considered a precursor of Italian literature. Before him, St. Francis dedicated two…
-
17 May 2021
Lost ice
According to a study conducted by a French and Swiss research team recently published in the leading journal Nature, continental…
-
10 December 2019
In the fridge of the world
Antarctica is a continent with a very particular charm...
-
15 April 2014
How rich are we …. in blue gold?
Water footprint, water availability and use on a planetary scale...
-
8 July 2022
Who’s coming to dinner
A shark in my hamburger Summer is finally here! As usual, we have waited for it all year long and…
7 October 2021
Water grabbing
“Clear, sweet fresh water,” wrote Petrarch, by many considered a precursor of Italian literature. Before him, St. Francis dedicated two…
-
10 December 2019
In the fridge of the world
Antarctica is a continent with a very particular charm...
