Seawater, or
salt water, is
water from a
sea or
ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a
salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, or 599
mM). This means that every
kilogram (roughly one litre by volume) of seawater has approximately of
dissolved salts (predominantly
sodium and
chloride ions). Average density at the surface is 1.025
kg/
l. Seawater is
denser than both
fresh water and pure water (density 1.0 kg/l at ) because the dissolved salts increase the mass by a larger proportion than the volume. The
freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases. At typical salinity, it freezes at about . The coldest seawater ever recorded (in a liquid state) was in 2010, in a stream under an
Antarctic glacier, and measured . Seawater
pH is typically limited to a range between 7.5 and 8.4. However, there is no universally accepted reference pH-scale for seawater and the difference between measurements based on different reference scales may be up to 0.14 units.