It is incredible that only 3.5% of the water on Earth is fresh, meaning it contains minimal salts. Lakes, rivers, and streams are where you can locate freshwater on Earth, but also consider groundwater and glaciers. The freshwater on Earth is trapped in ice and glaciers to a degree of over 68%. Another 30% is submerged in groundwater.
Let’s look at a statistic in general: Less than 1% is in the atmosphere, less than 1% is in lakes and rivers, and less than 1% is in all living things, including 97.2% is in the oceans and inland seas, 2.1% is in glaciers, and 0.6% is in groundwater and soil moisture.
“Glaciers hold about 75 percent of the freshwater on Earth. As a result, glacier ice is both the largest freshwater reservoir and the second largest reservoir of water on Earth!.
Every continent except Australia has glaciers. 91% of the distribution is roughly in Antarctica. In Greenland, 8% Less than 0.5% (about 0.1% in Alaska) in North America Asia: 0.2% South America, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Indonesia account for less than 0.1% of the total.The oldest glacier ice in Antarctica could be more than a million years old.
Amazing, isn’t it? Well, there is more – In Greenland, the oldest glacier ice is over 100,000 years old. Can you imagine!!.
The oldest glacier ice ever discovered in Alaska dates back roughly 30,000 years and was found in a basin between Mount Bona and Mount Churchill. A typical valley glacier in Alaska pushes newly created ice across its full length in less than 100 years because of glacier movement. According to flow rates, the 140+ mile-long Bering Glacier, Alaska’s largest and longest glacier, can be traversed by ice in fewer than 400 years.
Although the total amount of glaciers and ice caps on Earth is still unknown, if they were to completely melt, the world’s sea level would rise by nearly 70 metres (230 ft), submerging all coastal cities. More coastline might be swallowed up by a 1-foot sea level rise than we can fathom. If the slope is simply 1% or greater, 100 feet of shoreline are consumed for every 1 foot vertical rise in sea level. That slope represents the majority of coasts.
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