The following information is taken from a science literacy test1 concerning the distribution of water in different places (e.g., glaciers and oceans). It imagines that the total quantity could be contained in 100 buckets, and states that (i) about 95 of those buckets contain sea water, and (ii) about two buckets are filled from ice from glaciers and polar regions. The remaining buckets are filled by water from groundwater, lakes and streams, and the atmosphere.
(This topic was kindly suggested by Professors Andreas Muller and Cedric Loretan.)
Estimate by how much the sea level will rise from the melting of glaciers and polar regions.
Solution: The deepest part of the Pacific Ocean (Mariana trench) is about 10 km, and the range of depths D in km is therefore 0 ≤ D ≤ 10; we take the geometric mean, so D ≈ 3 km. Then the ratio (2...
