Posted on 12/05/2013 6:52:52 AM PST by blam
Scientists Discover Massive Freshwater Reserves Underneath The Ocean Floor
Agence France Presse
Dec. 5, 2013, 7:22 AM
Australian researchers said Thursday they had established the existence of vast freshwater reserves trapped beneath the ocean floor which could sustain future generations as current sources dwindle.
Lead author Vincent Post, from Australia's Flinders University, said that an estimated 500,000 cubic kilometres (120,000 cubic miles) of low-salinity water had been found buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.
"The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we've extracted from the Earth's sub-surface in the past century since 1900," said Post of the study, published in the latest edition of Nature.
"Freshwater on our planet is increasingly under stress and strain so the discovery of significant new stores off the coast is very exciting.
"It means that more options can be considered to help reduce the impact of droughts and continental water shortages."
UN Water, the United Nations' water agency, estimates that water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population in the last century due to demands such as irrigated agriculture and meat production.
More than 40 percent of the world's population already live in conditions of water scarcity. By 2030, UN Water estimates that 47 percent of people will exist under high water stress.
Post said his team's findings were drawn from a review of seafloor water studies done for scientific or oil and gas exploration purposes.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
What about the effect on global climate change and species eradication?
During an ice age much of it becomes "trapped" in glaciation and the global climate and humanity might then suffer a shortage of available water. We are no doubt headed in that direction, although whether it will happen in the 21st or 22nd centuries, or tens of thousands of years out isn't yet clear. But when it does I somehow think we will be able to cope.
Pollution is of course a separate problem but can be solved (and has been largely solved in the "evil white European descendant" countries) through reasonable environmental regulation and investment in technology, including desalination from sea water.
He will have to forgive me. I am cursed with a 1960's middle and high school science education plus some college courses in geology. My education must lack the heavy gravitas of a journalism degree.
Huh? It's stopped raining? Rivers are drying up?
BUT! BUT! BUT!
Just ask anyone in the oil business and they will tell you drilling a well offshore is so cheap.
Scientist are so smart.
(for all we know) there is more water underground than there is above ground (including the oceans).
game changer.
in a sane world that is.
Another science propoganda lie. Water doesnt just magically disappear. It may migrate from one area to another but it does not just go away. The H2O molecules do not leave the planet unless they get taken away by some space mission or we get hit by a large space object (which btw is why comets have water). The same water molecules you are drinking now have been drank by many other people and animals and dinosaurs for millions and millions of years. Don’t believe the hype!
That’s the FIRST thing I thought of after reading the title.
I HAD to read the comments to see if anyone else thought of it, too—thank you.
Science has known for several decades about the fresh water 5-10 miles deep under the Earth’s crust, but they do their best to keep it from becoming common knowledge. If we could re-evaluate all scientific findings in light of what the Bible says there would be a great collective ah-ha moment.
But you maybe so busy thinking and posting that you can’t be bothered to read...
Center for Scientific Creation - In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/IntheBeginningTOC.html
God did it. My best guess:)
We’ve pumped billions of gallons out of fresh water aquifers over the past 100 years, all of which entered the water cycle, some of which entered the oceans.
To what degree is the ocean level rising we’ve seen because of the fresh water we’ve already pumped out?
LOL! That sounds like a great line to use at a gathering of libtards in a hookah bar.
“Can an ocean be fresh water?”
There is no reason an ocean cant be fresh water.
We are drawing down the aquifers. The water isn’t disappearing though.
People used to be able to hand dig wells in my area as little as 90 years ago. Springs that used to run reliably in the past are dry year round. The average well depth currently seems to range from 500 - 600 feet.
The water’s there, it just takes much more effort to get it.
UN Water, the United Nations' water agency, estimates that water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population in the last century due to demands such as irrigated agriculture and meat production.Oh, meat production has to go then. /s
More than 40 percent of the world's population already live in conditions of water scarcity. By 2030, UN Water estimates that 47 percent of people will exist under high water stress.Seems like a good reason to NOT help the water-stressed population -- MOST of whom are muzzies, whom we should NOT be helping for other obvious reasons. The fact is, water stress either leads to population decline, or to decline in the stressed region due to emigration. We're already seeing that, such as SubSaharan Africans swamping places like Minneapolis.
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