What is the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean?

It is worth starting with the interpretation of such a concept as the "world ocean" - this is the water surface of the whole Earth, surrounded by land (continents, islands, etc.). In Russia and in a number of European countries it is divided into four parts (the ocean): the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Northern Arctic.

Many hundreds of millions of years ago, North and South America, Africa, Antarctica and Europe - it was a continuous array of land. The last several million years have been marked by such an event as the opening of the ocean basin, after which the land began to be divided into continents (this trend is still relevant today).

The Atlantic Ocean bore a variety of names: Atlantic, "the sea beyond the Hercules pillars," the Western Ocean, the Sea of Darkness. At the beginning of the XVI century. The cartographer M. Waldzemüller called this ocean Atlantic.

He is recognized as the second largest ocean of the Earth after the Pacific. The ocean in question is located between Africa and Europe (in the east), Iceland and Greenland (in the north), South America and North (in the west), Antarctica and South America (in the south).

It has a severely broken coastline with a pronounced division into separate regional water areas: bays and seas.

Salinity of the Atlantic Ocean

It is recognized as the most saline ocean. The salinity of the Atlantic Ocean in promil, according to official figures, is 35.4 . Its greatest importance is observed in the Sargasso Sea. This is due to strong evaporation and considerable distance from the river. The salinity of the Atlantic Ocean in some areas (at the bottom of the Red Sea) reached 270 ‰ (almost saturated solution). Sharp desalination of ocean water is noted in the mouth areas (for example, at the mouth of the La Plata River - about 18-19 ‰).

Distribution of salinity in the ocean is not always zonal. It depends on the following reasons:

• Evaporation;
• Quantity and mode of precipitation;
• Inflow of waters with currents from other latitudes;
• Volume of fresh water supplied by rivers.

Where is the highest concentration of salinity recorded in the ocean under consideration?

It occurs mainly in tropical latitudes (37.9 ‰). The coordinates of the area are 20-25 ° S. W. (South Atlantic), 20-30 ° N. W. (North Atlantic). In these places, predominantly the trade winds, a little rainfall, evaporation by a layer of 3 m, fresh water does not come here practically.

Slightly more salinity can be traced in the Northern Hemisphere (in places of temperate latitudes). All the waters of the current (North-Atlantic) flow there.

Salinity of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean: equatorial latitudes

It reaches a level of 35 . The salinity of the waters (the Atlantic Ocean) varies here with the deepening. This level is fixed at a depth of about 100-200 m. This is due to the surface current of Lomonosov. It is known that the salinity of the surface layer in some cases is not identical to the salinity at depth. The previously indicated salinity decreases sharply when colliding with the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current, the result of which is 31-32 .

Specificity of the Atlantic Ocean

This is the so-called submarine sources - underground fresh water. One has long been well known to sailors. This source is located to the east of the peninsula called Florida (where seafarers replenish freshwater supplies). It is a sandy area in the salty Atlantic Ocean with a length of up to 90 m. Fresh water beats at a depth of forty meters, then tends to the surface. This is a kind of typical phenomenon - unloading the source in the areas of karst development or within tectonic disturbances. In a situation where the pressure of groundwater significantly exceeds the pressure of the column of sea salt water, the unloading will immediately begin - the process of the outflow of groundwater.

What is the salinity of water?

A well-known fact is that water is an excellent solvent, therefore, in nature there is no water that does not contain soluble substances. Distilled water can be obtained only in the laboratory.

Salinity is the content of substances in grams dissolved in liter (kg) of water. As already mentioned, the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean in ppm is 35.4 . In 1 liter of ocean water, 35 grams of various substances are dissolved on average. In percentage terms this is 3.5%. Thus, the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean in percent will also be approximately 3.5%. However, it is usually expressed in thousandths of a number (per mille).

In the ocean water are contained in different proportions solutions of all known substances on Earth. Salinity of the Atlantic Ocean (as well as all other oceans) is the result of the content in it of significant amounts of table salt. The bitter water of the ocean is added to the magnesium salts. It also found: silver, aluminum, gold, copper. They constitute a very small proportion, for example, 2 thousand tons of water contain a gram of gold. Obviously, it simply does not make sense to mine it.

A significant amount of dissolved substances is difficult to detect because of their meager content. However, in the aggregate - this is a huge amount (if you could evaporate all the ocean water, these substances would cover the bottom of the World Ocean with a layer of 60 m). Out of their total volume, one can even create a 1 km wide shaft, and 280 m high, encircling the Earth along the equator.

Atlantic Ocean: depth, area, seas

As it became known, the first distinctive feature is the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean. In meters, its depth indicator reaches the level of 3700, and at the deepest point - 8742 m. Its area is 92 million square meters. Km.

The seas of the Atlantic Ocean are: Mediterranean, Caribbean, Sargasso, Marble, Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Northern, Baltic, Adriatic, Black, Weddell, Azov, Irish, Ionian.

Salinity of the Atlantic seas

Factors affecting the salinity of water in the ocean

There are at least four major ones. The salinity of the Atlantic Ocean (like any other water body) depends on the following processes:

• Evaporation of water from the surface of the ocean;
• The supply of fresh water into the ocean (runoff, atmospheric precipitation, etc.);
• Dissolution of saline rocks in water;
• Decomposition of dead animals.

A high salinity is also associated with the influx of salt waters from the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar .

Previously, many seamen in the ocean died from thirst. Later, seafarers began to stockpile a significant amount of fresh water, which took up too much space. Now, on ships, water is desalinated by means of special desalination plants.