There is much more water on our planet than land, and all of it is a single hydrosphere. All the processes occurring in it are interconnected, and the violation of one of them threatens with catastrophic failures on a planetary scale. Fortunately, humanity simply does not have enough opportunities yet to somehow significantly affect such global things.
Interesting facts about the hydrosphere
- It was in water that the first life on Earth was born. Thus, the hydrosphere is the cradle of life on our planet.
- The concept of the hydrosphere includes all the planet’s water, including vaporous water. But glaciers and snows are usually referred to as the cryosphere.
- Water consists of a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, and the latter in the hydrosphere is, according to scientists, about 8 trillion tons.
- Water is actually in fact, it is not only liquid, vaporous or frozen. In hydrology, the science that studies the hydrosphere, there are 14 different states of aggregation of ice and 5 states of liquid water.
- Most of the earth’s hydrosphere falls on the oceans and seas. They cover about 71% of the surface of our planet.
- Despite all this, only about 0.00025% of the mass of the Earth falls on the hydrosphere.
- There are more underground rivers on our planet than terrestrial.