For a first order approximation you would throw away topography as "irrelevant" (after all, it starts at only 30% and gets smaller as you add water) and you would treat the Earth as a proper sphere using distance from the center of the "sphere" to mean sea level as diameter.
Assume a constant rainfall, not adujsted for the increasing size of the sphere as the ocean gets deeper. Say, 1 inch per hour, that's a nice hard rain so 2 feet a day. It'll take a while to reach 5 miles. However, if you say wanted to know if it would fit into, say 40 days and 40 nights, you would just assume that it rained 5 miles/40 days, that is 1mile/8days, or 1/8 mile per day. It would, indeed, require a miracle. However, the miracle needed to produce such a global deluge would pale beside the erosive effects of so much precipitation. Where *DID* all that topsoil come from? On Thursday 05 December 2002 04:01 am, The Fool wrote: > Suppose you wanted to calculate the time it would take an even consistent > rainfall over the entire surface of the earth to raise the sea level > above the level of Mt. Everest (+5 miles or so), what would you need to > know about rainfall, volume of the earth, topography of the earth, etc. > to make a good first order approximation? > > _______________________________________________ > http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
