What is the salinity of the Pacific Ocean?

Question

Science project. I just need to know.

Answer 1

Its pretty close to 1. Its just a little below that.

Answer 2

It's not quite so simple...

First of all, let's talk about how oceanographers report salinity so we can talk in the same language. The unit by which salinity is most commonly reported is parts per thousand by weight, and is abbreviated o/oo. So a salinity of 35 o/oo means for every thousand pounds of water, there is 35 pounds of salt dissolved in it.

Part of the problem in determining salinity is that it varies widely. The major factors that influence this are rivers and the weather.

Evaporation off the ocean tends to increase its salinity - since only water tends to evaporate away, what's left will have more salt in a smaller amount of water. Likewise, hot water can hold more salt than cold water can before precipitating it out. The saltiest waters of the world are, as you would guess, near the equator - the Persian Gulf has a salinity of about 40 o/oo.

The difference in solubility with temperature also causes salt to precipitate out in the cold depths of the ocean even though it was well-dissolved higher up. This helps to balance salt being added in from above by rivers:

Though most rivers are fresh and markedly decrease salinity where they empty into the ocean (off the Oregon coast, for example, it can be as low as 0.3 o/oo at the mouth of the Columbia river), they do carry a non-zero amount of salt into the ocean that has nowhere else to go. There is some suggestion that there was little salinity in the oceans to begin with, but it has built up over time and become balanced at current levels. The effect of rivers can extend for some distance, too, before they become mixed in... in many cases hundreds of miles.

Having said all that, there are some pretty average figures when you get out in the middle of the ocean and away from many of the factors that skew those numbers. Throughout the world, all oceans have pretty much the same average salinity of 35 o/oo with a variance of not much more then +/- 2 o/oo (being lower near the poles and higher near the equator, as mentioned above).

A MUCH more detailed (but not too complicated) description of factors and variations can be had by following the link below. Hope that helps!

Answer 3

The average salinity of seawater is 35 parts per 1000, so 3.5%.

Answer 4

It varies from region to region....colder water holds slightly less than warm,,,but the average for all of the oceans is about 3.5%

Answer 5

really i thought i would be higher but it probley isn't from global warming