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The freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases. At typical salinity, it freezes at about −2 °C (28 °F). [ 1 ] The coldest seawater still in the liquid state ever recorded was found in 2010, in a stream under an Antarctic glacier : the measured temperature was −2.6 °C (27.3 °F).
Seawater with a typical salinity of 35‰ has a freezing point of about −1.8 °C (28.8 °F). [89] [107] Because sea ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans.
The majority of ocean heat gain occurs in the Southern Ocean. For example, between the 1950s and the 1980s, the temperature of the Antarctic Southern Ocean rose by 0.17 °C (0.31 °F), nearly twice the rate of the global ocean. [38] The warming rate varies with depth. The upper ocean (above 700 m) is warming the fastest.
As the temperature continues to drop, the water on the surface may get cold enough to freeze and the lake/ocean begins to ice over. A new thermocline develops where the densest water (4 °C (39 °F)) sinks to the bottom, and the less dense water (water that is approaching the freezing point) rises to the top.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. ... (29.5 °F), the freezing point of seawater, in the poleward areas to about 30 °C ...
However, the salt content of oceans lowers the freezing point by about 1.9 °C [41] (due to freezing-point depression of a solvent containing a solute) and lowers the temperature of the density maximum of water to the former freezing point at 0 °C. This is why, in ocean water, the downward convection of colder water is not blocked by an ...
Only the top layer of water needs to cool to the freezing point. [11] Convection of the surface layer involves the top 100–150 m (330–490 ft), down to the pycnocline of increased density. In calm water, the first sea ice to form on the surface is a skim of separate crystals which initially are in the form of tiny discs, floating flat on the ...
The temperature of the surface water of the Arctic Ocean is fairly constant at approximately −1.8 °C (28.8 °F), near the freezing point of seawater. The density of sea water, in contrast to fresh water, increases as it nears the freezing point and thus it tends to sink.