Where is 90% of the world's freshwater?

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asked Apr 28 in Home Work Help by SV388999 (1,920 points)
Where is 90% of the world's freshwater?

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answered Aug 17 by Satterfield (4,860 points)
90 % of the worlds fresh water is in the Antarctic ice sheet which holds 90 percent of the earths fresh water.

The ice sheet covers around 8.7 million square miles.

The Greenland ice sheet also contains very large volumes of the earths fresh water.

The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, and an average thickness of over 1.24 miles.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough ice to bury the United States and Mexico under more than a mile (2 kilometers) of ice.

By locking up all this water, the ice sheet plays an important role in setting sea levels around the planet.

For over 10,000 years, sea levels have been relatively stable.

Scientists have discovered a vast, hidden landscape of hills and valleys carved by ancient rivers that has been "frozen in time" under the Antarctic ice for millions of years.

If the Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, sea level would rise by about 60 meters (200 feet).

While this is unlikely to occur in the near future, there is research to suggest that the entire Greenland Ice Sheet could melt by the year 3000 if the world maintains its current levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The 360-m-deep water column beneath the ice shelf consists broadly of a 210-m layer of Ice Shelf Water (ISW) at a potential temperature of −2.30°C and salinity 34.53, overlying a 100-m-thick layer of modified Western Shelf Water (−2.03°C, 34.64).

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