From: Raleigh McLemore (raleighmclemore@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 12 2004 - 15:12:16 PDT
Message-ID: <20040512221216.51955.qmail@web40201.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 15:12:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Raleigh McLemore <raleighmclemore@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Subject: salinity of arctic waters
I spent most of my life trying to unconfuse myself,
failing most of the time, I'm weighing in on this
salinity issue.
Seems to me it depends. Ice formed from snow and rain,
built up over the years and calved into the ocean
should be essentially fresh (discounting small yellow
patches). I would guess that this floating ice, if it
moves into an environment that causes it to melt,
would create less salinity. If it was in water that
kept if below its freezing point I don't know what it
would do, maybe freeze sea water, adding to its bulk
and increasing salinity as the salt that is pushed out
of the forming ice is deposited in the water around
it...but I'm not sure how "fresh water ice" behaves
around "salt water ice"...probably they just argue
don't get along, dunno.
Salt water ice, formed from freezing of sea water
should increase salinity as not all of the salt is
incorporated in the formation of the ice, although I
know for a fact the saltwater ice is salty, cause I
tasted it, and it was. I only recently learned this
after trying to "distill" salt water by freezing it,
dumping the brine, then freezing it again (and again),
ending up with a salty ice cube.
So, where there is a lot of freshwater ice melting in
a fjord or bay or something I would expect lower
salinity.
Where the sea freezes I would expect the salinity
below it to increase.
This is great. Haven't speculated about something I
know so little about in a long time. Feels Great.
Remember we only have about 20 working school days
left. I could crawl that far.
With firm handshake,
Raleigh
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