What is Salinity?

Salinity is how much salt is in water, just like how sweet a candy is when you eat it.

Imagine you have a glass of water, and you start adding table salt, one pinch at a time. The more salt you add, the more salty the water becomes, that’s salinity!

In a pond near your house, there might be just a little bit of salt, like when you only added two pinches to your glass. But in the ocean, it's like someone threw a whole bag of salt into the water. That’s why the ocean feels so salty when you swim in it!

Scientists use something called grams per liter, which is just a fancy way of saying "how many grams of salt are in one liter of water." A pond might have 1 gram per liter, while the ocean can have around 35 grams per liter, that’s like having 35 pinches of salt in every glass of water!

So next time you’re at the beach, remember: the salt in the sea is what makes it special, and that’s salinity!