Review
The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a book on the ancient nature of the mainland that introduces the strange animals and geography of nature. At first, many people thought that this was just the author's imagination, the animals in it did not exist in the world, and some of the places mentioned in it were also made up out of thin air, after all, there were no transportation such as airplanes in that era, how could the ancients have such an understanding of world geography?
However, with in-depth research, it was found that the book was not so simple, and some animals and places were proved to exist.
For example, there is a mention in the book of a beast called an iron-eating beast. This beast prefers to feed on iron, and the hair on its body is composed of black and white. Now that we know that this iron-eating beast is actually a giant panda, it can be seen that the person who wrote this book did not make it up out of thin air.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas also mentions an interesting place, which says that this place is the end of the sea called the Gui Ruins, which swallows up a large amount of sea water every day and its depth is invisible, probably located in today's Mariana Trench.
Coincidentally, scientists have confirmed that this trench is indeed devouring seawater every day, and the amount of sea water swallowed up each year is about 300 trillion tons. Curiously, instead of falling, sea levels have risen, and what is the cause of this?
The Abyss of the Earth
The return to the ruins can be seen literally as a return to nothingness, and the ancients believed that everything in the world has a beginning and an end, and even the vast sea has its ultimate destination. As the saying goes, the water of mountains and rivers gradually flows into the sea through many channels. So where will the water in this sea flow? In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, there has long been a detailed explanation.
The book describes that the water of the sea will eventually flow to a bottomless abyss, which will swallow up a large amount of seawater every day and never stop for thousands of years. As for the location of this abyss is today's Mariana Trench, but the place names at that time were completely different from those of today.
You know, now human beings can know the location of the Maria Trench, and even detect that it can swallow seawater, which is through advanced detection equipment, radar, submarines and other ways, to have today's little understanding.
And the depth of this trench, ordinary human beings with their bodies can not withstand this huge pressure, it is difficult to imagine, how the ancients spied its true appearance, had to admire the wisdom and ability of the ancients.
However, wisdom can not completely compensate for the technical drawbacks, the ancients can find this place is not easy, so it is impossible to find the specific amount of trenches swallowing seawater from the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
So back to the modern era, what exact data have the relevant scholars obtained, and has it answered the question mentioned above?
Huge amount of ingestion
Scientists measured the flow rate of seawater to obtain the average amount of seawater ingested per hour, and then multiplied by the total number of hours in a year to get a surprising data, the Mariana Trench can swallow 300 trillion tons of seawater a year. Probably many people have no idea about this number and don't know what it means to swallow so much seawater.
After state control, the annual water consumption of the mainland is about 610 billion tons, and the water swallowed by the Maria Trench in one year is enough to support the people of the mainland for 5,000 years.
In addition, according to statistics, the total amount of seawater on the earth is about 13.2 billion tons, which is indeed an astronomical figure compared with the amount of water swallowed by the Mariana Trench, but if this is reduced to a swimming pool, the Maria Trench is equivalent to the floor drain at the bottom of the swimming pool.
Even if the Maria Trench, a drain, is going to take a long time to swallow up all the seawater, in the process, the sea level should be like a swimming pool, with observable data constantly sinking, but this is not the case, the main reason is the magic of nature.
Where the devouring seawater goes
Many substances in nature have been in a continuous cycle process, such as the carbon cycle that we have learned in biology, which is very important for biological continuation.
Carbon dioxide in the air, compounds of oxygen and carbon formed by green plants through photosynthesis. This food then enters the body of the herbivore as food, and it also enters the body of the carnivore and is passed on. In the end, after obtaining carbon, organisms breathe and then return carbon to nature in the form of carbon dioxide.
The water cycle on the ground is through physical changes such as evaporation and rainfall, to achieve the continuous circulation of groundwater and rivers, and the same is true for the sea, after the sea is swallowed up by the trench, it will still return to the sea through a series of channels, but its circulation form is not so intuitive.
For example, volcanic eruptions are an important way to circulate seawater. We know that volcanic eruptions bring a lot of heat and gas, in addition to some toxic gases produced by combustion, there is no shortage of water vapor, and even the proportion is not low, reaching a proportion of sixty percent.
In addition, part of the seawater swallowed by the trench enters the depths of the earth, where the closer it is to the center of the earth, the higher the temperature will be, and along with the various compounds here, a wonderful ecosystem of the ocean will be formed: the hot springs of the seabed.
Although the process of the seabed cycle is very slow, it also shows that when the trench swallows seawater, there is always other forms of seawater exchanged, and the overall situation is in a dynamic equilibrium, which is why the sea level does not have a downward trend.
You will be very surprised to see this, because the structure of the earth is so complex, and there is such a complex circulatory system inside the seemingly ordinary ocean.
brief summary
In fact, for humans, sea level decline is not a bad thing, in contrast, due to the greenhouse effect of sea level rise should be our more concerned about the problem. Due to the development of industry, the accumulation of greenhouse gases, the global temperature is gradually increasing, the most direct consequence is the melting of glaciers.
It should be known that glacier melting is not a reversible process, the formation of Antarctic ice sheets is also very difficult, when glaciers melt into the sea, not only Antarctic Arctic organisms face a huge existential crisis, even some coastal cities are also facing the risk of disappearing.
Simulated Antarctic ice sheet melting
In the face of the shrinking living space of human beings and the threats to biodiversity, we should actively respond to low-carbon actions and defend our homes with actions.