Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Annual mean sea surface salinity for the World Ocean. Data from the World Ocean Atlas 2009. [1] International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) standard seawater. Salinity (/ s ə ˈ l ɪ n ɪ t i /) is the saltiness or amount of salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity).
Seawater, or sea water, is water from a sea or ocean.On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has approximately 35 grams (1.2 oz) of dissolved salts (predominantly sodium (Na +
The salinity is associated with the difference between evaporation and precipitation. [1] Ocean currents are important in moving fresh and saline waters around and in keeping a balance. Evaporation causes the water to become more saline, and hence denser. Precipitation has the opposite effect, since it decreases the density of the surface water.
Annual mean sea surface salinity in Practical Salinity Units (psu) from the World Ocean Atlas [117] Salinity is a measure of the total amounts of dissolved salts in seawater. It was originally measured via measurement of the amount of chloride in seawater and hence termed chlorinity.
In contrast, variations in salinity were much greater than they are today. Modern day salinities are all within 0.5 psu of the global average salinity of 34.7 psu, whereas salinities during the last glacial maximum (LGM) ranged from 35.8 psu in the North Atlantic to 37.1 in the Southern Ocean.
From shallow waters to the deep sea, the open ocean to rivers and lakes, numerous terrestrial and marine species depend on the surface ecosystem and the organisms found there. [28] The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above and the water below, and harbours an ecosystem unique to this environment.
Plot of temperature and salinity in the Arctic Ocean at 85,18 north and 117,28 east dated Jan. 1st 2010. [6] In the graphical representation, three layers can be discerned: About 50 m (160 ft) of low salinity water "swimming" on top of the ocean. The temperature is −1.8 °C (28.8 °F), which is very near to the freezing point. This layer ...
Because the vast majority of the world ocean's volume is deep water, the mean temperature of seawater is low; roughly 75% of the ocean's volume has a temperature from 0° – 5 °C (Pinet 1996). The same percentage falls in a salinity range between 34 and 35 ppt (3.4–3.5%) (Pinet 1996). There is still quite a bit of variation, however.