I saw a video a while back where a scientist noted something that I never really thought about. There is no way for water to get off of (except by rocket), or onto this planet. The water that is here, has been here since the beginning.

So, if the water can't get off. Where did it all go? Why all the drought?

Concrete.

China will pour more concrete this year than all of Rome poured in the whole of their empire’s existence.

And concrete poured by Rome is still curing today.

Of course that just my guess.

quote:

Originally posted by OcCurt:
Concrete.

Great thread. Who's got those Oreo's?

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Originally posted by parabellum:
Great thread. Who's got those Oreo's?

Hey man, no need to skip straight to dessert. We got Doritos. Would you prefer Cool Ranch, or Nacho Cheese? I know they make that other stuff now, but... it's tradition.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
So, if the water can't get off. Where did it all go? Why all the drought?

Y'know, I've often wondered the same thing.

I suppose it could be breaking down into its constituent components: Hydrogen and oxygen, but, then, wouldn't scientists be measuring increased concentrations of both in the atmosphere? Or are they binding with other things?

If a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, will it cause a hurricane in Florida?

Most (97%) is in the oceans. If it's not in ice caps and glaciers, lakes and streams, in the atmosphere, or underground, it's in the ocean. It cycles between all these areas. Droughts are a localized distribution issue. Globally, it's (for the most part) a zero-sum gain.

Also, some amount is disassociated into hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere and those molecules can get kicked into space and lost from solar radiation, but meteors continue to bring some water to us as they burn up in the atmosphere so you’d have to do research to see whether we’re gaining or losing water globally.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Most (97%) is in the oceans. If it's not in ice caps and glaciers, lakes and streams, in the atmosphere, or underground, it's in the ocean. It cycles between all these areas. Droughts are a localized distribution issue. Globally, it's (for the most part) a zero-sum gain.

This is more or less the point. Water is zero sum on the planet. Yet even though the ice caps are melting and releasing frozen water to liquid form, we have drought around the country. Major reservoirs at never before seen lows.

What happened that broke the cycle? Is this normal cyclical climate process? Is something causing water to evaporate in the western US and fall in abundance elsewhere?

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Originally posted by Rightwire:
What happened that broke the cycle?

Who said it's "broken"?

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Is this normal cyclical climate process?

Yes.

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Is something causing water to evaporate in the western US and fall in abundance elsewhere?

Yes. Weather.

It’s aliens. Aliens are stealing it in the form of icebergs, and taking it to their home planet. They use a miniaturizer to shrink the iceberg for transport, then embiggen it back to full size once they get it to Kloon. These are the same lizard beings that used to waste their time probing people to determine the moisture content of an average human. It’s all there in the manifesto.

It’s in people…

You go from a few cavemen roaming around to 7.8 billion.

This article and pictures are interesting...

How big would a sphere of all Earth's water be?
https://earthsky.org/earth/if-...how-big-would-it-be/

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
It’s in people…

You go from a few cavemen roaming around to 7.8 billion.

I wonder if tree huggers think that population reduction will release all that trapped water and save the planet?

The Saudis have been farming alfalfa and have dropped the water table so low whole towns are out of water.

I get nervous here when it doesn’t rain for weeks as I’m on a well and the city is sucking the aquifer dry.

Hey man I’m trying. Cup of coffee goes in, twice as much water comes out.

Issue is not the water but that there are too many damn people on the planet that need water with out crap in it and most of the crap we put in it in the first place.

Loss of organic matter in agricultural soils.

Which is also the actual source for increased CO2.

Losing organic matter reduces the ability of a soil to absorb and retain water.

We have lost an astounding amount of water capacity from the Great Plains.

I CONTEST ALL THESE ARGUMENTS!

It’s in the BEER. All these microbreweries everywhere. It seems every little town has one, or two or three.

They suck up the water and put it in beer.

Solution? Isn’t it obvious? DRINK MORE BEER!

Filter it and put it back into the system.

Think I’ll start right now, right after I finish my coffee…