12.

808: Some Physical Properties of Sea Water or, More than you ever
wanted to know about the basic state variables of the ocean
Salinity
Various salt constituents in 1 m3 of seawater having (t, S) = (20, 35). Taken
from Neumann and Pierson, Principles of Physical Oceanography, 1966,
Prentice-Hall.
Constituent
NaCl
MgCl2
MgSO4
CaSO4
K2SO4
CaCO3
KBr
SrSO4
H2BO3

Mass, kg
28.014
3.812
1.752
1.283
0.816
0.122
0.101
0.028
0.028

Running Total, kg
28.014
31.826
33.578
34.861
35.677
35.799
35.900
35.928
35.956

Now, based on the equation of state (EOS-1980) for seawater, the density of
seawater having this (t,S) value should be 1024.8 kg/m3. So the mass of salts
divided by the mass of the water is:
(35.956/1024.8) = 35.1, which should be 35 but seems a bit off!
Salinity used to be based on chlorinity (Cl) since it was found that many of the
above salt constituents had a constant ratio with Cl in seawater under a variety
of values and locations (based on the Challenger Expedition samples). After
later finding out that this was not universally true, a different, more accurate
salinity scale was developed based on the electrical conductance of seawater
compared to a standard solution of KCl at 15 oC. A practical salinity scale
was agreed upon in 1978 (PSS1978). Standards based on KCl are available for
purchase and are made in batches every year and distributed to the
oceanographic community. See Fofonoff (JGR, 90, 3332-3342, 1985) for a
discussion of PSS78 (and EOS1980, below). Salinity used to be reported as
parts per thousand or o/oo (or grams per kg of seawater), but now has no formal
units under the new salinity scale.

Temperature
Temperature is measured in an absolute scale (degrees Kelvin, oK) from
absolute zero, a temperature of zero molecular motion. Other benchmarks have
been picked somewhat arbitrarily based on properties of various substances,
which are readily available and have some rather stable properties. The
temperature scale used on oceanography is the Celcius scale (degrees C) such
that:
T = t + 273.15, where T is in oK and t is in oC.
Temperature scales have changed over the years (in 1948, 1968 and most
recently in 1990) as various benchmark values have been changed. For the
oceanographic temperature range (-2 to 35 oC), temperature is now based on
electrical resistance measurements of a pure platinum wire relative to the
resistance at the triple point of water, which is a temperature value at which
solid, liquid and vapor phases are in equilibrium at a standard atmosphere.
Other benchmarks and the resistance ratios are given below:

Triple point, mercury

Triple point, water
Melting point, Gallium
Freezing point, Indium

Temperature oC
-38.8344
0.01
29.7646
156.5985

Wr
0.84414211
1.00000000
1.11813889
1.60980185

Wr=R(t90)/R(273.16 oK) is the resistance ratio of pure platinum for the t90
temperature scale relative to the triple point of pure water. For the
oceanographic range,
t90 = 0.010015 + 250.7140(Wr-1) + 9.71421(Wr-1) 2
The difference between the old (1968) temperature scale (t68) and the new
(t90) is small, basically showing that water now boils at 99.97 oC not at 100! It
can be written as
t90=0.99976*t68

Most formulae for water properties (e.g. EOS1980, PSS1978) were distributed
before this temperature change occurred and to be formally correct, they should
have their t90 temperatures changed to the t68 scale before using them.
In this course, we will usually use the symbol T to represent t90, unless units
are specifically given as oK.
Some representative profiles of temperature and salinity vs. depth are given
below. The region of rapid temperature change with depth due to seasonal
heating is called the seasonal thermocline. It lies above a permanent
thermocline, which divides the upper and deep parts of the ocean.

Pressure
Pressure is force/unit area acting on a surface. It has several units, with
conventional units different in meteorology and oceanography. The Standard
International (SI) units are based on the MKS (meter-kilogram-second) and is
the Pascal.
1 Pascal = 1 newton/m2, where
1 Newton = 1 kg m / s2, making
1 Pascal = 1 kg / m s2 .
Other units commonly uses are based on the Bar, where
1 Bar = 105 Pascal
1 mbar 10-3 bar = 102 pascal = 1 hectopascal,
1 dbar = 10-1 bar = 104 pascal.
Pressure at the bottom of the atmosphere is 1.013 bar or 1013 mbar.
Meteorologists commonly use millibars as pressure units and oceanographers
use decibars because the additional pressure under a layer of water that is 1
meter high is approximately 1 dbar. We generally use gauge pressure, or the
departure of pressure from atmospheric values at sea level. Just to make things
more complicated, pressure is often quoted in terms of cm or inches of mercury
in a manometer, where a standard atmosphere (1013 mbar) will raise a column
of mercury a height 76 cm. Pressure measuring instruments can generally be
calibrated by adding fixed masses that depress a fluid column a known amount,
given that one can independently measure or determine the local acceleration of
gravity!

Short digression on pressure:

Consider the diagram at the right:
A column of water of density and height h is resting.
The column has a cross-sectional area A. The pressure
at the top of the column is Pt and at the bottom, Pb. The
Pressure at the bottom can be expressed as the total force
per unit area on the bottom surface or

(p1) Pb = (Ah)g/A + Pt = gh + Pt ,
where (Ah) is the mass of fluid & g is the acceleration of gravity. For small
changes in depth, h = -z, and Pb - Pt = P, the above equation can be written in
differential form as:
(p2) P/z = -g ,
where we have inserted the sign convention that z is positive upward. This is
known as the hydrostatic balance & is one of the most important relations in the
ocean, where for most low frequency changes, it is a reasonable approximation
of the force balance in the vertical.
For a column of saltwater with a density of 1025 kg/m3 that is 10 m high with a
gravity of 9.81 m/s2, using (p1) we get:
P = (1025)(9.81)(10) ~ 105 Pa,
which is the pressure at the bottom of the atmosphere. Thus, the weight of the
entire atmosphere is equivalent to 10 m of seawater! Mercury, which has a
specific gravity of 13.6, or a density of 13.6 times that of pure water, would
produce the same pressure at the bottom of a column that is:
h = 105 Pa / (13600 kg/m3) / (9.81 m/s2 ) = 0.754 m.
With a sea level pressure of 1.01 Bar, this would give 0.76m. A
mercury-filled tube, sealed at one end and evacuated of air on that
end, open to the atmosphere at the other is called a manometer and
is one of the easiest ways of routinely and accurately measuring
atmospheric pressure.

sealed
open
0.76m

Adiabatic Lapse Rate & Potential Temperature

If a layer of fluid is completely mixed, then when 2 parcels of fluid from
anywhere in the layer are brought together at the same pressure, their properties
are indistinguishable. The parcels must all have constant entropy per unit mass,
. This is expressed thermodynamically as follows:
d = dT + dp = 0, or
p
T

dT

dp

T v

T = , where C p , v
T
T p
T
Cp

where T is temperature (oK), v/T is the change in specific volume (inverse of

density) with respect to temperature, Cp is heat capacity at constant pressure,
and is the adiabatic lapse rate, or rate at which temperature will change in
the vertical in an otherwise vertically mixed layer of fluid. It is often explained
in terms of the compressiblility of air or seawater, but as you can see from the
above, it does not directly come from the compressibility (v/p), but from the
change in volume with temperature.
At the surface of the earth in the lower atmosphere and in the deep ocean, the
following are approximate values for :
Lower atmosphere:

-10oC / 1000m increase in height

Deep Ocean:

-0.1 oC / 1000m decrease in depth

This is most common to those living near mountains who can move upward to
cooler temperatures by ascending the mountain even in a well-mixed lower
atmosphere. In the ocean it is most evident in the gradual increase in
temperature with increasing depth in the deep ocean. Because of the nonconservative aspect of temperature, we often use potential temperature, which
is the temperature of a fluid parcel that is moved adiabatically from an initial
pressure of pi to a reference pressure pr. It is expressed as follows:
pr

= t i + dp , where is the lapse rate and ti is the initial temperature.

p

The diagram at the right is

taken from Pickard &
Emery (who took it from
elsewhere) and shows the
classic picture of the
difference between
temperature and potential
temperature over a deep
trench (Mindanao). On the
left, temperature increases
with depth and density
anomaloy (using in situ
temperature) decreases
with increasing depth and
suggest a tongue of
cooler water flowing to
the left, over the sill at the
right. Potential
temperature and potential
density anomaly (right
panels) correctly show
cooler deep water flowing over the sill and into the abyss with stable
stratification above.
Density
Various different ways are used to describe the density of seawater and its
relation to the basic field variables of temperature, salinity and pressure.
= 1000 kg/m3 = (s,t,p)

density anomaly

v = 1/ = v(s,t,p)

specific volume

= v(s,t,p) - v(35,0,p)

specific volume anomaly

= (s, ,p,pr)

potential density [2= (s, ,p,2000)]

Usually density is plotted/examined at fixed pressures so that is much more

commonly than . The internationally used equation of state of seawater was

suggested by Millero and accepted in 1980 (EOS80). The density of air at

atmospheric pressure is approximately 1.2 kg/m3, nearly a thousand times less
than seawater.
Sound Speed
The speed of sound, c, in a fluid is defined as:
c-2 = ( /p), where the usual notation above applies and the change of
density with pressure (related to the inverse of the compressibility) is
determined at constant entropy.
Values of sound speed (t=15 oC, p = sea level) in air (340 m/s) and water (1500
m/s) are quite different and c has the property that it increases with both t and p.
In the ocean, because p increases with depth and t decreases with depth, one
often sees a sound velocity minimum in the water column as sketched below:
1450

1000m
depth

1500

1550 m/s

Sound velocity minimum or

sound channel: whales use it for
long distance communication!

2000m

In the following figure (taken from Pickard & Emery) an example of a sound
velocity profile is given for a North Pacific location in which (upper panel)
temperature and salinity variations are plotted vs. depth (left), the sound
velocity dependence due to temperature and pressure (center) and the resultant
sound speed profile (right) are indicated. In the lower panel(s), near surface and
deeper effects of sound speed variation on propagation of rays of sound are
shown. Note how, in the lowest plot, sound tends to be channeled in a region
defined by the sound velocity minimum. This sound channel enables longdistance communication by whales, and has been exploited by oceanographers
[and the military] for some time.

Dynamic Height or Geopotential Anomaly

Under action of gravity, a geopotential , can be defined as the work done per
unit mass to move a particle a distance dz, where z is the direction of gravity.
d = g dz,
z

( z) = 0 +

g dz
0

Recalling the hydrostatic balance (from the discussion of pressure),

dp = gdz; vdp = gdz = d, thus
P

( P ) = (0) 0 dp dp = (0) 0 dp D( p ), where

P

D ( p ) dp
0

D(p) is dynamic height or geopotential anomaly and it contains all of the

horizontal and vertical variations of density in the fluid. The term proportional
to 0 is of little dynamic consequence and the term at the ocean surface, 0, is a
depth independent part of the geopotential or dynamic height that will need to
be evaluated based on considerations other than density (or specific volume
anomaly). The MKS units for geopotential anomaly or dynamic height are
m2/s2, but common usage gives values of dynamic height in dynamic meters,
which is equivalent to 10 m2/s2.
Heat Capacity
The amount of heat needed to raise the temperature per unit mass of a substance
a temperature T = 1 oK at constant pressure is heat capacity, Cp. Some typical
values are as follows:
Ocean water:
Air
Granite

Cp= 4.2 x 103 joules/kg/ oK

Cp= 103 joules/kg/ oK
Cp= 0.84 x 103 joules/kg/ oK

Cp=4.2 x 106 joules/m3/ oK

Cp=1.2 x 103 joules/ m3/ oK
Cp=2.3 x 106 joules/m3/ oK

If one multiplies the heat capacity times the density of each of the above Cp,
one gets the third column, which is a measure of the heat capacity of one m3 of
the substance.
Reference: Fofonoff, in The Sea, Vol. 1: Physical Properties of Seawater.