About 97 Percent of Earth's Water Is in the Ocean

Earth is a watery planet, and nearly all of that water is salty. NOAA’s National Ocean Service states that about 97 percent of Earth’s water can be found in the ocean. Of the small share that is not in the ocean, about two percent is frozen in glaciers and ice caps, and less than one percent of all the water on Earth is fresh. A tiny fraction exists as water vapor in the air. NOAA puts numbers to the total. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers of water on the planet, and NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center estimates that 1,335,000,000 cubic kilometers of it is in the ocean. NOAA offers a homely comparison: that is enough water to fill about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon-sized milk containers.