WATER SALINITY
There are more water molecules in a single droplet of water than there are
grains of sand on Wrightsville Beach
You are 65% water
•Salinity is the total amount of dissolved salts in water;
grams of salts per kilogram of water (g/kg) or as parts
per thousand (ppt).
Why Study Salinity…
– Determines the distribution of plants and animals that live in
the ocean.
– Affects other properties of seawater, such as its density
and the amount of dissolved oxygen.
About 70% of the Earth is
covered with water. Over
97% of that water is found in
the oceans.
Everyone who has taken in a
mouthful of ocean water
while swimming knows that
the ocean is really salty!
Dissolved salts in ocean water make it taste salty. Fresh
water has dissolved salts in it too, but not nearly as
many as ocean water!
• Why are oceans salty?
Most of the salt in the sea comes from minerals that
were part of the solid Earth (land!). When rivers flow
over rocks on land, minerals get dissolved by the river
water. These minerals are deposited into the oceans
as the rivers flow into the oceans.
The most abundant mineral in
seawater is of course sodium
chloride, or common salt.
If all the salt in the ocean
were dried, it would form a
mass of solid salt
the size of Africa! Or we can
build a 180-mile-tall, one-
mile-thick wall around the
equator!
The technical term for saltiness in the ocean is
halinity,
from the fact that halides - chloride specifically –
are the most abundant anions in the mix of dissolved
elements.
In oceanography, it has been traditional to express
salinity not as percent, but as
parts per thousand (ppt or ‰),
which is approximately grams of salt per liter of solution.
Sea Surface Salinity
•All over the globe and
from the top of the ocean
all the way to the bottom
of the ocean, salinity is
between
~33-37 ppt or psu
(average salinity of the ocean is 35 ppt).
SIGNIFICANT TYPES OF SALT IN
THE OCEAN
• 1. Sodium chloride(nacl) • 77.8%
• 2. magnesium chloride(mgcl2) • 10.9%
• 3. magnesium • 4.7%
sulphate(mgso4)
• 4. calcium sulphate(caso4) • 3.6%
• 5. pottasium sulphate(k2so4) • 2.5%
• 6. calcium carbonate(caco3) • 0.3%
• 7. magnesium bromide(mgbr2) • 0.2%
Life in the oceans has adapted to this
salty environment. But, most
creatures that live in the
ocean could not live in
fresh water.
• In 1978, oceanographers redefined salinity in the Practical
Salinity Scale (PSS) as the conductivity ratio of a sea water
When the salty waters of the ocean meet fresh water,
an estuary is formed. This is a special environment where some
creatures have learned to adapt to a mixture of fresh and salt
water. Humans have the responsibility to make sure their
actions are not causing damage to these special
environments where life thrives.
View of the high salinity, open water area of the White Oak
River estuary.
Salinity variations
Open ocean salinity 33 to 38%
Coastal areas salinity varies more widely
Influx of freshwater lowers salinity or creates brackish conditions
Greater rate of evaporation raises salinity or creates hypersaline
conditions
Salinity may vary with seasons (dry/rain)
CTD recorder to
measure salinity,
temperature and depth of the water.
How does the surface and
subsurface ocean vary in salinity
Polar regions: salinity lower, lots
of rain/snow and runoff
Mid-latitudes: salinity higher,
high Rate of evaporation
Equator: salinity lower, lots of
rain
Thus, salinity at surface varies
primarily with latitude
Halocline, rapid change of salinity
with depth
Deep ocean variation of salinity
Surface ocean salinity is variable
Deeper ocean salinity is nearly the
same (polar source regions for
deeper ocean water)
REFERENCES
anra.gov.au
environment.nsw.gov.au
lighthouse.tamucc.edu
kaelepulupond.org
