Why does the salt in the sea not melt the icebergs in the North pole ?

Answer 1

Pure water freezes below 0°C

Salted water such as sea water freezes below -13°C, approximately.

It is very cold near the north pole (far under -13°C), therefore the ice can't melt, even with salt.

You can try this experiment outside, in the winter, using table salt. If the temperature gets cold enough, you will see that salted water will eventually freeze.

Answer 2

There are two types of ice in the sea.

Sea Ice (salt water)
Icebergs (fresh water)

The salty water will freeze. It occurs at approx. -1.8 deg. C. That is what constitues sea ice.

Icebergs break off from glaciers. These are fresh water. They can stay frozen because the surrounding water/air is colder than freezing. The salt in the ocean allows the water to stay liquid below freezing.

These can both still melt. But Icebergs especially are LARGE. Its not a fast event like taking an ice cube out of the freezer. The combination of their size and the temperature makes melting a SLOW process.

Wiki has a nice article about it as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_ice

Answer 3

Salt water freezes, it just freezes at a lower temperature. Much of the ice near the North Pole is frozen sea water.

Answer 4

It is true that some of the north pole is frozen salt water but most of it comes from the snow piled on it from snow which is frozen pure water. When it snows in our cities, by putting salt on it we bring the freezing temperature of the snow below 0 degrees which is the freezing temperature of pure water at sea level. So putting salt on ordinary snow brings the freezing temperature to about minus 12 to 13 degrees. If the ambient temperature is above minus 12 degrees (i.e. no les than minus 5 or 6 degrees in most parts of Britain) the snow melts at any temperature above minus 12 or 13 degrees. But if the temperature falls below minus 12 or 13 degrees then even the salted snow will freeze. As the temperature at the North Pole is normally much more below minus 12 degrees, it is always frozen regardless its constituency. I hope this is helpful.

Answer 5

There is not as much salt up in the North Poles as there is in regions near the equator. Also, if you ever wondered, the North Pole is located at a dry belt, but has a lot of snow because snow accumlates there over many years; temperatures are not hot enough there to melt the snow that has accumulated over thousands of years. (otherwise, there'd be no snow up there at all!)

Answer 6

It does a little as normal water freezes at 32 deg F. ocean water freezes at 26 deg F.

Answer 7

there is probably just too much ice there to melt with salt as the chemical reaction is too slow

Answer 8

What a brilliant question! I have absolutely no idea. Maybe the water dilutes its effect.

Answer 9

salt water does`nt freeze to well so it will keep them frozen until they get to warmer waters.