I'm really astonished at the abbreviation they've used for the mass
unit. How they got THREE M's for "Million Metric Tons" (which has
only TWO M's) I'll never understand.
Furthermore, since a million tons is 1000 tons and
a ton (or tonne) is 1000 kg and
a kilogram is 1000 g,
that makes a million tonnes equal to 1000x1000x1000 g
which is 10^9 g or 1 Gg (one gigagram).
Surely their two quoted pieces of data
(1.1 MMMT and 1.4 MMMT)
would be more easily stated as:
1.1 Gg and 1.4 Gg
Presumably it is OK to write Mt or megatonne?
I must admin I never though of that in a recent message about astronomy
where related 1 Solar mass as 2 x 10^30 kg We could I suppose write this as
2000 Yt (yottatonne).
Phil Hall
