What is the salinity of the Arctic ocean?

What is the salinity of the Arctic ocean?

between 30 and 34 psu
The Arctic Ocean is generally fresher than other oceans, somewhere between 30 and 34 psu, but salinity levels vary by region, and areas with strong river inflow may have even lower salinity.

What is the temperature of the Arctic ocean?

28.8 °F
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.

How shallow is the Arctic ocean?

The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is 3,953 feet and it is 18,264 feet at its deepest point. The Arctic Ocean is almost completely covered with ice for the majority of the year and its average temperature seldom rises above freezing.

Is the Arctic ocean freshwater?

The Arctic Ocean is a very fresh ocean. Eventually, this freshwater (both liquid ocean water and its solid sea ice component) finds its way south into the North Atlantic Ocean via the complex passageways of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and also through Fram Strait northeast of Greenland.

Which ocean has the highest salinity?

Of the five ocean basins, the Atlantic Ocean is the saltiest. On average, there is a distinct decrease of salinity near the equator and at both poles, although for different reasons. Near the equator, the tropics receive the most rain on a consistent basis.

How can salinity decrease in the ocean?

Evaporation of ocean water and formation of sea ice both increase the salinity of the ocean. However these “salinity raising” factors are continually counterbalanced by processes that decrease salinity such as the continuous input of fresh water from rivers, precipitation of rain and snow, and melting of ice.

What is the temperature of Antarctic waters?

The Antarctic Ocean’s freezing temperatures of 28.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1.8 degrees Celsius) are lower than the freezing point of fish blood, which is about 30.4 degrees F (minus 0.9 degrees C), which would seem to suggest that all those fish should be frozen in their tracks.

What is the coldest temperature in the Arctic ocean?

The lowest temperature actually in the Arctic ocean is about -1.8 C (29 F) as this is the freezing point of the arctic water.

Which ocean is the deepest?

western Pacific Ocean
The average ocean depth is 2.3 miles . The deepest part of the ocean is called the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench, which runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the U.S. territorial island of Guam.

What are 3 interesting facts about the Arctic ocean?

The total volume of the Arctic Ocean is 160.7 million mi3 of water. The Arctic Ocean contains 1.4% of all the world’s ocean water. The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of all five oceans. The total surface area of the Arctic Ocean is 6 million mi2.

Did the ocean used to be freshwater?

But seawater wasn’t always so salty; when the Earth’s oceans first formed about 3.8 billion years ago, as the surface of the planet cooled enough to allow water vapour to liquify, the oceans were mostly fresh water. The runoff slowly carried the salt to nearby lakes and rivers, which in turn carried it to the seas.

What sea is fresh water?

Seas are generally larger than lakes and contain salt water, but the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake.

What are the physical features of the Arctic Ocean?

The Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km 2 (5,427,000 sq mi), almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km (28,200 mi) long. It is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands.

How is the Arctic Ocean connected to other oceans?

It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea and Labrador Sea. Countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are: Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland (territory of the Kingdom of Denmark), Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours on the Arctic Ocean.

What is the distribution of the water mass in the Arctic?

Distribution of the major water mass in the Arctic Ocean. The section sketches the different water masses along a vertical section from Bering Strait over the geographic North Pole to Fram Strait. As the stratification is stable, deeper water masses are more dense than the layers above.

Why is the Fram Strait important to the Arctic Ocean?

Water flow. The width of the Fram Strait is what allows for both inflow and outflow on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean. Because of this, it is influenced by the Coriolis force, which concentrates outflow to the East Greenland Current on the western side and inflow to the Norwegian Current on the eastern side.