Wet and Wild Facts About Water!
Water is the sustainer of life. Every living plant and creature on planet Earth depends on water for their existence.
From the sixteen thousand pound African elephant, to the three-gram, Ruby Throated hummingbird, and all animals in between, none can live without water.
Each year the average person (if there is such a thing) drinks up to fifty-eight gallons of water.
I thought it might be interesting and a little fun to lay out some fascinating facts for you about water, its consumption, and mystery.
Earthly Water Facts by the Numbers
- Over seventy percent of our planet is covered in water (70.9%)
- The typical cumulus cloud weighs around 1.1 million pounds
- 30% of all fresh water is in the ground
- 1.7% of all water is frozen, thereby unusable
- There is more fresh water in the atmosphere than in all the rivers on Earth combined
- 97% of all the water on Earth is salt water
Those are some fascinating stats right there. One stat that I find particularly mysterious is the one that pertains to the cloud. If your average cloud is weighing in at over a million pounds, how does it remain afloat when even a feather tossed into the air will fall to Earth?
It’s like when I look at something large such as an aircraft carrier. The USS Lexington weighs in at forty-one thousand tons and sails the seven seas, yet, I can flip a one-ounce pebble into the water, and it will sink like a stone (pun intended). Why is that?
It is all about water displacement. The same principal applies to clouds. A cloud is made-up literally, of trillions of tiny water droplets spread out over a large area. These droplets can be so small it may take over a million of them to create just one drop of water! With droplets this tiny, gravity really has little effect on them. In addition, clouds are less dense than the air and drier, which gives them some buoyancy.
Water Consumption by Farm Animals per Day
- A cow consumes about 18 gallons of water per day
- An average working horse drinks around 14 gallons
- A grazing horse in a pasture drinks about 9 gallons
- A sheep drinks a gallon a day
- A swine sow drinks 6 gallons (Couldn’t find any duck stats)
Trees That Defy Gravity
Trees are tremendous consumers of water. We all know that the roots of the tree are not only what holds it in the ground, but the vehicle by which it draws its water. Here is something you may not know.
Redwood trees are the fastest growing softwood trees in America with a growth rate of about one foot per year and can tower a mind blowing thirty-seven stories tall. They need a lot of water. But how can a tree taller than the Statue of Liberty draw water up to those heights? Theory says you can’t transport water that high. It would seem then that Redwoods defy the laws of gravity and friction. Their secret however, may have been discovered. According to Todd Dawson, a plant ecologist at UC Berkeley, these trees drink water from the top and the bottom, which breaks all the rules.
In an article written by Associated Press writer Don Thompson, scientists studying the Giant Redwoods of California discovered that the world’s tallest trees’ upper stories drink from the sky itself, sucking water directly from the clouds of fog that cover much of the West coast during the dry season.
Water is the life’s blood of our planet and our very being. Without water, life on our planet could not exist.
In appreciation for our gift of life, let us strive to be good stewards of our planet and work to conserve and preserve our life giving water.
With so little fresh and pure water available to us, having a reliable source is paramount to our health. If you’ve been contemplating drinking better water, don’t go bottled. One statistic I didn’t mention was that 25% of all bottled water is cleaned up tap water from some city somewhere.
For the cleanest, healthiest water on Earth, look at investing in your good health with an ionized alkaline water purifier from Tyent USA.
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Image credit
Drops/animals-123rf.com
Giant Redwood-digthatcrazyfarout.com
Info
Clouds mentalfloss.com
Redwoods-article.latimes.com
Animals-lifestyleblock.co.nz
Water-water.epa.gov
