Sunday, January 31, 2010

Water Reflections

The following quote comes from this delightful post. Read the quote and tell me if you don't think this is really very cool?!?!??!

“You exhale roughly a liter of water per day into the atmosphere, and most of this water rains or snows back down again within about a week’s time. The total global precipitation is about 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion) times greater than the amount of water you exhale, so your impact on the weather is pretty minor.

But even if you contribute only one quadrillionth of the total water content in a snowflake, that is still about 1,000 molecules. It depends on how well things are mixed in the atmosphere, but there are probably, very roughly, about a thousand of your molecules in every snowflake.”

photo december, 2008... so i wonder how many of my molecules are in this shot taken in my own backyard???

8 comments:

Sue said...

That is SO really very cool!

Kayce aka lucy said...

ain't it though?!?!? almost makes me want it to snow, so i can see if i see myself :-)

Sue said...

*LOL* Hey, that bit of that flake looks particularly me circa 1987! :) (a big hair snowflake)

Kel said...

thankyou for the science of a snowflake 101

:-)

Kayce aka lucy said...

so curious that it's my two aussie friends who've commented on the snowflakes. hmmmm. wonder what's up with that? perhaps awareness of cool comes from deep down under??!??!?!

Sue said...

Hah, yes. Interesting :) Maybe it's cause you guys are getting sorta near the tail end of winter and so everyone else can't rouse themselves out of the snowdrifts to comment on ... snow :) Whereas we are coming to the end of summer and so now the cooler weather and all that comes with that is looking a little beguiling, maybe :)

Dan Gurney said...

I really, really like this quote and also the post about kindergarten in which it is embedded.

Fantastic. Thank you for sharing this with me.

Kayce aka lucy said...

dan - i just knew when i read your snow crystals post that you would enjoy this and i'm so glad you popped over and read the whole kindergarten story. it really is a treasure!!