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A cubic mile isn't a widely-used measurement of volume. Everyone knows what a 2-liter of soda looks like.

But everyone knows how long a mile is, and can imagine a cube one mile long one mile wide and one mile high. Though we can't truly grasp the scale, we can at least understand the magnitude of a value of ~ten million.

But quoting a value of 4.4 x 10^19 liters is meaningless for most people.

"Of course, that's 22,000,000,000,000,000,000 two-liter soda bottles!"

So cubic miles seems like a reasonable unit for this pop-science article, despite the fact that you likely wouldn't use it in a published journal article.

> But everyone knows how long a mile is

Yeah. Long. I doubt most people can eyeball something in the distance and say with accuracy "yeah that is about a mile away" because a mile is really long and people are bad at estimating things. Now do it for 10 miles.

A relatable example like someone has mentioned "its about 10 dead seas worth" would have been a better play.

I’d guess a lot of Americans can look at a globe and eyeball 100 miles or 1,000 miles. At least American adults with a lot of driving experience. When you get into the millions of cubic miles of water, I think the best way to visualize it is a cube sitting next to the globe.

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