Dissolved inorganic substances

The principal components of seawater are listed in the table.

In contrast to the behaviour of most oceanic substances, the concentrations of the principal inorganic constituents of the oceans are remarkably constant. Calculations indicate that, for the main constituents of seawater, the time required for thorough oceanic mixing is quite short compared with the time that would be required for input or removal processes to significantly change a constituent’s concentration. The concentrations of the principal constituents of the oceans vary primarily in response to a comparatively rapid exchange of water (precipitation and evaporation), with relative concentrations remaining nearly constant.

Salinity is used by oceanographers as a measure of the total salt content of seawater. Practical salinity, symbol S, is determined through measurements of the electrical conductivity and temperature of seawater, which are interpreted by an algorithm developed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Practical salinity, along with temperature, can be used to calculate precisely the density of seawater samples. Because of the constant relative proportions of the principal constituents, salinity can also be used to directly calculate the concentrations of the major ions in seawater. The measure of practical salinity was originally developed to provide an approximate measure of the total mass of salt in one kilogram of seawater. Seawater with S equal to 35 contains approximately 35 grams of salt and 965 grams of water, or 35 ppt (35 psu).

Many other constituents are of great importance to the biogeochemistry of the oceans. Such chemicals as inorganic phosphorus (HPO₄^2– and PO₄^3–) and inorganic nitrogen (NO₃^–, NO₂^–, and NH₄⁺) are essential to the growth of marine organisms. Nitrogen and phosphorus are incorporated into the tissues of marine organisms in approximately a 16:1 ratio and are eventually returned to solution in approximately the same proportion. As a consequence, in much of the oceanic waters dissolved inorganic phosphorus and nitrogen exhibit a close covariance. Dissolved inorganic phosphorus distributions in the Pacific Ocean strongly bear the imprint of phosphorus incorporation by organisms in the surface waters of the ocean and of the return of the phosphorus to solution via a rain of biological debris remineralized in the deep ocean. Inorganic phosphate concentrations in the western Pacific range from somewhat less than 0.1 micromole/kg (1 × 10⁻⁷ mole/kg) at the surface to approximately 3 micromoles/kg (3 × 10⁻⁶ mole/kg) at depth. Inorganic nitrogen ranges between somewhat less than 1 micromole/kg and 45 micromoles/kg along the same section of ocean and exhibits a striking covariance with phosphate.

A variety of elements essential to the growth of marine organisms, as well as some elements that have no known biological function, exhibit nutrient-like behaviour broadly similar to nitrate and phosphate. Silicate is incorporated into the hard structural parts of certain types of marine organisms (diatoms and radiolarians) that are abundant in the upper ocean. Dissolved silicate concentrations range between less than 1 micromole/kg (1 × 10⁻⁶ mole/kg) in surface waters to approximately 180 micromoles/kg (1.8 × 10⁻⁴ mole/kg) in the deep North Pacific. The concentration of zinc, a metal essential to a variety of biological functions, ranges between approximately 0.05 nanomole/kg (5 × 10⁻¹¹ mole/kg) in the surface ocean to as much as 6 nanomoles/kg (6 × 10⁻⁹ mole/kg) in the deep Pacific. The distribution of zinc in the oceans is observed to generally parallel silicate distributions. Cadmium, though having no known biological function, generally exhibits distributions that are covariant with phosphate and concentrations that are even lower than those of zinc.

Many elements, including the essential trace metals iron, cobalt, and copper, show surface depletions but in general exhibit behaviour more complex than that of phosphate, nitrate, and silicate. Some of the complexities observed in elemental oceanic distributions are attributable to the adsorption of elements on the surface of sinking particles. Adsorptive processes, either exclusive of or in addition to biological uptake, serve to remove elements from the upper ocean and deliver them to greater depths. The distribution patterns of a number of trace elements are complicated by their participation in oxidation-reduction (electron-exchange) reactions. In general, electron-exchange reactions lead to profound changes in the solubility and reactivity of trace metals in seawater. Such reactions are important to the oceanic behaviour of a variety of elements, including iron, manganese, copper, cobalt, chromium, and cerium.

The processes that deliver dissolved, particulate, and gaseous materials to the oceans ensure that they contain, at some concentration, very nearly every element that is found in Earth’s crust and atmosphere. The principal components of the atmosphere, nitrogen (78.08 percent), oxygen (20.95 percent), argon (0.93 percent), and carbon dioxide (0.038 percent), occur in seawater in variable proportions, depending on their solubilities and oceanic chemical reactions. In equilibrium with the atmosphere, the concentrations of the unreactive gases, nitrogen and argon, in seawater (0 °C [32 °F], salinity 35) are 616 micromoles/kg and 17 micromoles/kg, respectively. For seawater at 35 °C (95 °F), these concentrations would decrease by approximately a factor of two. The solubility behaviours of argon and oxygen are quite similar. For seawater in equilibrium with the atmosphere, the ratio of oxygen and argon concentrations is approximately 20:45. Since oxygen is a reactive gas essential to life, oxygen concentrations in seawater that are not in direct equilibrium with the atmosphere are quite variable. Although oxygen is produced by photosynthetic organisms at shallow, sunlit ocean depths, oxygen concentrations in near-surface waters are established primarily by exchange with the atmosphere. Oxygen concentrations in the oceans generally exhibit minimum values at intermediate depths and relatively high values in deep waters. This distribution pattern results from a combination of biological oxygen utilization and physical mixing of the ocean waters. Estimates of the extent of oxygen utilization in the oceans can be obtained by comparing concentrations of oxygen with those of argon, since the latter are only influenced by physical processes. The physical processes that influence oxygen distributions include, in particular, the large-scale replenishment of oceanic bottom waters with cold, dense, oxygen-rich waters sinking toward the bottom from high latitudes. Due to the release of nutrients that accompanies the consumption of oxygen by biological debris, dissolved oxygen concentrations generally appear as a mirror image of dissolved nutrient concentrations.

While the atmosphere is a vast repository of oxygen compared with the oceans, the total carbon dioxide content of the oceans is very large compared with that of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide reacts with water in seawater to form carbonic acid (H₂CO₃), bicarbonate ions (HCO₃^–), and carbonate ions (CO₃^2–). Approximately 90 percent of the total inorganic carbon in seawater is present as bicarbonate ions. The formation of bicarbonate and carbonate ions from carbon dioxide is accompanied by the liberation of hydrogen ions (H⁺). Reactions between hydrogen ions and the various forms of inorganic carbon buffer the acidity of seawater. The relatively high concentrations of both total inorganic carbon and boron—as B(OH)₃ and B(OH)₄^–—in seawater are sufficient to maintain the pH of seawater between 7.4 and 8.3. (The term pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration in moles per kilogram. Thus, a pH equal to 8 is equivalent to 1 × 10⁻⁸ mole of H⁺ ions per kilogram of seawater.) This is quite important because the extent and rate of many reactions in seawater are highly pH-dependent. Carbon dioxide produced by the combination of oxygen and organic carbon generally produces an acidity maximum (pH minimum) near the depth of the oxygen minimum in seawater. In addition to exchange with the atmosphere and, through respiration, with the biosphere, dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations in seawater are influenced by the formation and dissolution of the calcareous shells (CaCO₃) of organisms (foraminiferans, coccolithophores, and pteropods) abundant in the upper ocean.