The Amazon carries more water than any other river. On average, how many cubic metres does it pour into the Atlantic each second?
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Answer
About 210,000 m3 per second
That is more than the next seven largest rivers combined, and it makes the sea surface noticeably less salty more than 100 km offshore.
How to estimate it
A river carries the rain its basin does not lose to evaporation. The Amazon basin covers about 6 million square kilometres, or 6 × 10^12 square metres. Rainforest receives around 2 m of rain a year, and about half runs off: 6 × 10^12 × 1 m = 6 × 10^12 cubic metres per year. Divide by 30 million seconds: 200,000. The measured average is about 210,000 m3 per second.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica; Brazilian National Water Agency
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