There is probably nothing more foundational to understanding the ocean than the study of salinity. New discoveries regarding its magnitude and variability continue to feed our knowledge of the nature of the marine environment. From the earliest seagoing civilizations, which learned that the buoyancy of their ships might vary in waters of different salt content, to the modern navies of the world, who strive to tune acoustic systems to perform optimally within density-dependent sound velocity profiles, we have wondered at the nature of ocean salinity.

Spinrad, R. 2008. From the President: The salt of the sea. Oceanography 21(1):7, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2008.72.

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