If you’ve ever got a mouthful of water while paddling, swimming, or surfing in the ocean, you’ll know one thing for sure.
The sea is super salty.
But if it was the Atlantic that you got an unsuspecting gulp of, that water in your mouth has a secret: it’s saltier than ever before.
That’s according to researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who have studied the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to discover that – over a forty-plus year timespan – the Atlantic Ocean has got way saltier than ever before.
In their research, which was recently published in the academic journal Nature: Climate Change, the scientists described how changes to the climate and the weather are at the root of this change to the Atlantic Ocean’s salinity.
Admittedly, the Atlantic has always been much saltier than the Pacific Ocean, due to a range of factors, including its geography. Because of the particular areas that the Atlantic stretches into, more heat is applied to this ocean.
This means that more of its water evaporates, leaving behind the salt that that water once contained. This increases the saltiness of its remaining waters.
The geography of the Pacific Ocean, however, includes more estuaries, where freshwater and ocean water meet. Freshwater – which comes from various water sources, including springs that release water from underground, and melted snow and ice that runs down from mountains – intermingles with this saltwater, increasing the level of water relative to salt.
But what happens when different weather patterns come into play?
Well that’s exactly what the researchers wondered.
In their research, the scientists discovered an almost 6% increase in the salinity contrast between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, in the time spanning 1965 to 2018.
What has happened in that time? Well for one, we’ve reached a significant period of climate crisis.
As a result, ocean temperatures have increased; at the same time, wind patterns have changed, which have affected the flow of the oceans.
Because of all this, the factors affecting the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean have amplified, causing its saltiness to increase way beyond the level of salinity increase in the Pacific Ocean.
Why is this important? Well firstly, we have our ocean habitats to think of. Whether or not the creatures and plants that form perhaps the world’s most vital ecosystems will cope with this increase in temperature and salinity in the long term is as yet unknown.
At the same time, increased temperatures and salinity may cause increased melting of glaciers (already a significant issue), resulting in rising water levels and triggering one of the climatic tipping points from which scientists warn there is no turning back.
Regardless of what happens, it has never been more clear that we need to take action on climate change immediately, to slow or hopefully even reverse the detrimental impact that humans have had on our planet.
More than just extra salty seas are at stake here.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?