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How Deep Is the Ocean?

It’s often said we know more about the moon than we do about the depths of the ocean. There is a lot we don’t know about the H2O that covers much of the planet. Now we’re getting closer, though, to an important understanding: Just how deep are the oceans, and what’s the volume of all that water? The latest, best estimate is 1.332 billion cubic kilometers, according to research published in the journal Oceangraphy. [Matthew Charette and Walter Smith, Ogbh]
都说人类对月球的了解要比对海洋深度的了解要多得多。确实，对于覆盖地球表面大部分区域的H2O，我们真是知之甚少。不过，我们正越来越接近相当重要的发现：海洋到底有多深？它的总水量又是多少？据《海洋学》相关研究记载，最新最准确的估计，海洋总水量为13.32亿立方千米。

That’s actually lower than previous estimates by about five Gulf of Mexicos. It’s not that there’s less water out there. Rather, new satellite images have presented a clearer image of all the mountain ranges strewn across the ocean floor. Those peaks displace what we’d thought of as space for water.
这个数据要比之前所估计的大约要小5个墨西哥湾的水量，但这并不表示水少了。事实上，从最新卫星图像中我们可以看到更加清晰的海底山脉分布情况，这些山脉分布的地方之前也被当成了海水。

But even the new satellite-based radar images still need fine-tuning. As researcher Walter Smith says, “We’re seeing only really big mountains, and in a blurry way. The resolution is 15 times worse than our maps of Mars and the moon.”
不过即使是新型卫星雷达图像仍有待调整。正如沃特·史密斯所说：“我们看到的只是大型山脉，还模模糊糊的。分辨率要比火星和月球的卫星图像低15倍。”

Ship-based sonar would help, but ship-based instruments have mapped only about 10 percent of the ocean floor so far. We really do know more about the surface of the moon than the total ocean floor.
尽管船舶声纳技术也用得上，但是迄今为止利用船舶器械仅仅绘制出海底地貌的10%。看来，我们对月球表面的了解确实要比对海底地貌的了解要多得多啊。

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