Not quite, but it's pretty close. Although frozen seawater—such as the kind that makes up ice shelves, ice floes, etc.—is far less salty (or less saline) than liquid seawater, it doesn’t quite qualify as fresh water.
Fresh water must have a salt content of less than 1 gram per liter (or less than 1 part per thousand). Liquid seawater, in contrast, has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand. When sea water freezes into sea ice, its average salinity is 12–15 parts per thousand; this is lower than seawater, for sure, but it also doesn’t qualify as fresh water. Over time, much of the salt is lost from frozen seawater, but not enough to be as fresh as the rains that feed lakes and rivers or the snow that caps mountain peaks.
As seawater freezes and ice forms, liquid brine (a highly concentrated water solution of common salt [sodium chloride]) and air are trapped within a matrix of pure ice crystals. Solid salt crystals subsequently precipitate in pockets of brine within the ice. As ice grows thicker during the course of the winter, the average salinity of the entire ice thickness decreases as brine is lost from the ice. Brine loss occurs by temperature-dependent brine pocket migration, brine expulsion, and, most importantly, by gravity drainage via a network of cells and channels. At the end of winter, Arctic first-year ice has an average salinity of 4–6 parts per thousand, for example. Antarctic first-year ice is more saline, perhaps because ice growth rates are more rapid than in the Arctic, and granular ice traps more brine.
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Answer:
Not quite, but it's pretty close. Although frozen seawater—such as the kind that makes up ice shelves, ice floes, etc.—is far less salty (or less saline) than liquid seawater, it doesn’t quite qualify as fresh water.
Fresh water must have a salt content of less than 1 gram per liter (or less than 1 part per thousand). Liquid seawater, in contrast, has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand. When sea water freezes into sea ice, its average salinity is 12–15 parts per thousand; this is lower than seawater, for sure, but it also doesn’t qualify as fresh water. Over time, much of the salt is lost from frozen seawater, but not enough to be as fresh as the rains that feed lakes and rivers or the snow that caps mountain peaks.
As seawater freezes and ice forms, liquid brine (a highly concentrated water solution of common salt [sodium chloride]) and air are trapped within a matrix of pure ice crystals. Solid salt crystals subsequently precipitate in pockets of brine within the ice. As ice grows thicker during the course of the winter, the average salinity of the entire ice thickness decreases as brine is lost from the ice. Brine loss occurs by temperature-dependent brine pocket migration, brine expulsion, and, most importantly, by gravity drainage via a network of cells and channels. At the end of winter, Arctic first-year ice has an average salinity of 4–6 parts per thousand, for example. Antarctic first-year ice is more saline, perhaps because ice growth rates are more rapid than in the Arctic, and granular ice traps more brine.
Explanation: