h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

is water still being created on earth or is all the water just being recycled?

Those two options are not the only ones. There's a third one: chunks of ice coming in from space and melting in our atmosphere.

I know the answer is out there somewhere, someone!

We are certainly creating water at the moment by burning hydro-carbons, and that includes us breathing, however there are also plants taking in water and CO2 and creating hydro-carbons from them.

Externally there are bits coming in on asteroids etc. but also molecules escaping from the top of the atmosphere.

My guess is that because we are currently burning historically laid down hydro-carbons at the highest rate known, we are probably increasing the total amount of water in circulation.

Of course it's still being created it is evaporated from the sea, condenses then falls as rain.

Interesting interpretation of the word 'created', there.

Strictly speaking, if you fill a glass with water and just let it sit, billions of water molecules get created and torn apart every second.

B

It is interesting that I have just been researching an Entry on Niagara Falls. As part of my research I found that over 90% of the water in the US Great Lakes is 'fossil water' that remains untouched from the melting glaciers from the last ice age, about 12.00 years ago

F S

12.00 years? That would mean that the glaciers melted in 2001.

12,000

Thanks.