What will happen to the salinity (pH) of the oceans if the polar ice caps melt?

Question

Will the answer be affected by proximity to the poles? Is Arctic ice more saline than Antarctic ice?

Answer 1

Salinity will decrease a bit, but it won't be very significant.

Lower salinity fish might move out of their environments and colonize other parts of the oceans.

Answer 2

you know of course that salinity is not the same thing as PH (acidity). The polar ice caps are mostly fresh water (no salinity) so salinity of the ocean will decrease. The PH of fresh water (the ice caps) is pretty neutral, so the PH of the oceans will tend more towards being neutral. I have no idea if ocean water tends to be more acidic or more basic, but whichever one it is, it would become less.

For a LONG time, the closer you are to the poles, the less saline the water will be. Even once the ice caps are gone completely, the water will still be more salty at the equator, because more water will evaporate at the equator, and the evaporating water will leave salt behind.

Answer 3

The dumping of fresh water will decrease the salinity of the ocean causing the slowing down of ocean currents ...and already has. It is the sinking of the salt water in the cold northern regions which creates the "conveyor belt motion" moving the current to the equatorial regions where it is warmed and sent back up to warm the north. This drives the climate by the way. I don't know of any scientific study that shows one pole having more saline ice than the other.

Answer 4

The average depth of the oceans is roughly 2000 m. So even such a drastic change in ice melting would only cause about 5 percent change in salinity if the caps melt.

Answer 5

I think you mean eH, rather than pH

A simplistic answer would be the dilution effect would reduce salinity. But this would be ignoring all kinds of complex variables, like changes in rates of evaporation or rainfall, continental erosion, and deep ocean currents.

Ice is ice. When seawater freezes the salts remain in solution.

Answer 6

pH and salinity are not the same. pH is a measure of hydrogen ion in a solution, salinity a measure of salt in solution. both will become less concentrated with dilution, so pH would tend toward 7 and salinity would decrease. More importantly, slight changes in solution density could occur, changing normal ocean currents.

Answer 7

Well, salinity is the amount of dissolved sodium particles in water or other medium (normaly measured in ppm), and pH is the acidity or basicness of certain medium. But to answer your question with popular theory, the salinity will decrease, but no real estimate of wether there will be an increase/decrease in pH. I hope this helps you resolve your question...

Answer 8

Ice, any ice has nothing in it but some dissolved air. The salt is expelled as the ice crystals form. Therefore one might assert that seawater in the polar region would be expected to be saltier than other areas, but of this fact I am uncertain

Answer 9

Salinity and pH are two different things. Salinity will decrease, pH will probably not be affected.

Answer 10

It will become less salty. But don't worry...it's not going to happen.