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Asked by 101owen101 to Samantha, Sam on 6 Jul 2012.
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Samantha Weaver answered on 6 Jul 2012:
Ocean water freezes just like freshwater, but at lower temperatures. Fresh water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), but seawater freezes at about -1.9 degrees Celsius (28.4 degrees Fahrenheit) because of the salt in it. When seawater freezes, however, the ice contains very little salt because only the water part freezes. It can be melted down to use as drinking water.
At least 15 percent of the ocean is covered by sea ice some part of the year. On average, sea ice covers almost about 25 million square kilometers (10 million square miles) of the Earth.
Sea water becomes more and more dense as it becomes colder, right down to its freezing point. Fresh water, on the hand, is most dense while still at 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit), well above the freezing point. The average temperature of all ocean water is about 3.5 degrees Celsius (38.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
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Sam Chilka answered on 6 Jul 2012:
As Samatha has said, oceans can and do freeze – for example in the arctic and antarctic, the surface of the oceans do freeze to create icebergs. But, becuase of the salt content, sea-water freezes at a lower temperature than pure water.
The oecans don’t freeze solid because they contain so much water, and because all the oceans of the world are connected, so water from warmer parts of the world eventually circulates into the colder areas to raise the water temperature there – so it’s only ever the surface of the water that freezes.
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