what percent of the earth's hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

what percent of the earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

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Distribution and quantity of Earth’s waters

hydrosphere

Ocean waters and waters trapped in the pore spaces of sediments make up most of the present-day hydrosphereThis water, however, plays an important role in the water cycle.

Earth’s water earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

At present, ice locks up a little more than 2 percent of Earth’s water and may have accounted for as much as 3 percent or more during the height of the glaciations of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). Although water storage in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere is small, the rate of water circulation through the rain-river-ocean-atmosphere system is relatively rapid. The amount of water discharged each year into the oceans from the land is approximately equal to the total mass of water stored at any instant in rivers and lakes.

Soil moisture earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

Soil moisture accounts for only 0.005 percent of the water at Earth’s surface. It is this small amount of water, however, that exerts the most direct influence on evaporation from soils. The biosphere, though primarily H2O in composition, contains very little of the total water at the terrestrial surface, only about 0.00004 percent, yet the biosphere plays a major role in the transport of water vapour back into the atmosphere by the process of transpiration.

Thus, the masses of water at Earth’s surface are major receptacles of inorganic and organic substances, and water movement plays a dominant role in the transportation of these substances about the planet’s surface.

Biogeochemical properties of the hydrosphere

Rainwater

About 107,000 cubic km (nearly 25,800 cubic miles) of rain fall on land each year. The total water in the atmosphere is 13,000 cubic km, and this water, owing to precipitation and evaporation, turns over every 9.6 days. Rainwater is not pure but rather contains dissolved gases and salts, fine-ground particulate material, organic substances, and even bacteria. The sources of the materials in rainwater are the oceans, soils, fertilizers, air pollution, and fossil fuel combustion.

oceanic islands

It has been observed that rains over oceanic islands and near coasts have ratios of major dissolved constituents very close to those found in seawater. The discovery of the high salt content of rain near coastlines was somewhat surprising because sea salts are not volatile, and it might be expected that the process of evaporation of water from the sea surface would “filter” out the salts.

nitrogen

For the nitrogen gases nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) released from fossil fuel burning, their atmospheric reactions lead to the production of nitric acid (HNO₃) and its dissociation to hydrogen ions (H⁺) and nitrate (NO₃⁻). These reactions are responsible for the acid rain conditions that occurred in the northeastern United States, southeastern Canada, and western Europe during the second half of the 20th century (see below Acid rain). The high sulfate values of the rain in the northeastern United States reflect the acid precipitation conditions of this region.

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River and ocean waters

hydrosphere and earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

River discharge constitutes the main source for the oceans. Seawater has a more uniform composition than river water. It contains, by weight, about 3.5 percent dissolved salts, whereas river water has only 0.012 percent. The average density of the world’s oceans is roughly 2.75 percent greater than that of typical river water.

fresh versus salt water

Of the remaining one part of the salinity, calcium and potassium constitute 0.4 part each and carbon, as carbonate and bicarbonate, about 0.15 part. These elements strongly regulate the organic production of the world’s oceans.

Hydrosphere earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

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The Pacific Ocean, part of Earth’s hydrosphere

The hydrosphere (from Greek ὕδωρ hydōr, “water”^[1] and σφαῖρα sphaira, “sphere”^[2]) is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above the surface of a planet, minor planet, or natural satellite. Although Earth’s hydrosphere has been around for about 4 billion years,^[3]^[4] it continues to change in shape. This is caused by seafloor spreading and continental drift, which rearranges the land and ocean.^[5]

cubic kilometers earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

It has been estimated that there are 1386 cubic kilometers (or roughly 332 cubic miles) of water on Earth.^[6] This includes water in liquid and frozen forms in groundwater, oceans, lakes and streams. Saltwater accounts for 97.5% of this amount, whereas fresh water accounts for only 2.5%.

; 30.8% is in the form of fresh groundwater; and only 0.3% of the fresh water on Earth is in easily accessible lakes, reservoirs and river systems.^[6]

resource: wikipedia

mass of Earth’s hydrosphere

The total mass of Earth’s hydrosphere is about 1.4 × 10¹⁸ tonnes, which is about 0.023% of Earth’s total mass. At any given time, about 20 × 1012 tonnes of this is in the form of water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere (for practical purposes,

1 cubic meter of water weighs one tonne).

The average salinity of Earth’s oceans is about 35 grams of salt per kilogram of sea water (3.5%).^[7]

Congruent and incongruent weathering reactions

These acid solutions in the soil environment attack the rock minerals, the bases of the system, producing neutralization products of dissolved constituents and solid particles. Two general types of reactions occur: congruent and incongruent. In the former, a solid dissolves, adding elements to the water according to their proportions in the mineral. An example of such a weathering reaction is the solution of calcite (CaCO₃) in limestones:

Water-rock interactions as determining river water composition

Generally speaking, the composition of river water, and thus that of lakes, is controlled by water-rock interactions. The attack of carbon dioxide-charged rain and soil waters on the individual minerals in continental rocks leads to the production of dissolved constituents for lakes, rivers, and streams.

what percent of the earth’s hydrosphere is fresh versus salt water

HCO₃

Here one of the HCO₃⁻ ions comes from calcite and the other from CO₂(g) in the reacting water. The amount of carbon dioxide dissolved according to reaction (4) depends on temperature, pressure, original bicarbonate content of the weathering solution, and partial pressure of the carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide

The carbon dioxide and the temperature are the most important variables. Increases in one or both of these variables lead to increases in the amount of calcite dissolved.

fresh versus salt water

For example, for a carbon dioxide pressure of 10^−3.5 (0.00032) atmosphere, the amount of calcium that can be dissolved until saturation is about 10^−3.3 (0.0005) mole, or 20 ppm, at 25 °C (77 °F).

For an atmospheric carbon dioxide pressure of 10⁻² (0.01) atmosphere and for a soil atmosphere of nearly pure carbon dioxide, the values are 65 and 300 ppm, respectively.

The weathering of calcite

The insoluble residue of quartz (SiO₂), clay minerals, and iron oxides (e.g., FeOOH) in the limestone rock make up the deep-red soils that form from limestone weathering.

An example of an incongruent

An example of an incongruent weathering reaction—that is, one where only part of a solid is consumed—is that involving aluminosilicates.

One such reaction is the aggressive attack of carbon dioxide-charged soil water on the mineral K-spar (KAlSi₃O₈), an important phase found in continental rocks. The reaction is