Less Salt in the sea

[SharkBaitOooHaha]

Discussing this with a friend today. I grew up in London 1980s and every summer holiday as a child we’d go to Leyesdown. I clearly remember the smell of the sea, it smelt strongly of salt. I have been to Hastings and Cambersands recently and that salty smell has gone, my friend (who hasn’t been to the beach) thinks I must be losing my sense of smell, maybe I am.. Why else would the smell have changed, anyone else noticed this?

Your sense of smell reduces with age.

Due to the melting of the polar ice and glacial melt water diluting the salt to water ratio it is becoming less salty which is what's messing with the gulf stream and if it continues it could shut it down completely and that would cause the UK to get much colder.
What you're noticing is climate change in action

Its the chemtrails.

Of course the sea doesn’t smell salty anymore — everyone’s been nicking the artisanal stuff for their sourdough focaccia and avocado scrambles. Table salt’s for peasants now. The middle class have harvested the ocean dry for their Himalayan-infused, truffle-dusted sea salt grinders. Poor old Thames estuary never stood a chance.

Does salt even smell?

I feel like i remember when I was young long long ago, getting off the train at the coast somewhere like Brighton and being able to smell the sea from afar. And now although my sense of smell is definitely inferior now, I have thought for a long time that there's a less seasidey smell around.

Actually studies show that the salinity of the sea has increased across the majority of places since the 80’s.

But.. smelled strongly of salt? I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever thought when standing near or on the ocean. Beach smell for sure, sea smell but just.. salt smell??

I live by the sea. For us it's seaweed we can smell. At low tide we get the smell wafting up from the seafront.

Seaside smell is mostly seaweed and fish. It's fairly possible that there was still small-scale fishing going on in the 1980s: individual boats bringing the catch to shore, instead of floating factories that process and chill the fish while out at sea.

Salt, iodine and ozone do have a smell, though, and children would be more acutely aware of it. Ozone actually smells horrid - kind of metallic - but the low concentration in a sea breeze is invigorating 🙂

The sea never smelled salty to me. Maybe you’re thinking of the sea weed and dead crustaceans.

A local beach smells very beachy. Other beaches without the millions of dead crustaceans and seaweed don’t smell the same.

The sea is at the end of my street. When it's warm, we can smell the seaweed on the rocks. When the sea is rough and it's windy, we can taste salt in spray blowing off the waves. But we can't smell the salt.

That wasn’t salt you could smell…it was sewage. Stand downwind of a sewage plant and you’ll get a rush of 80s beach holiday nostalgia.

Dont worry though! It’s coming back now water companies can dump shit with impunity.

You can't smell salt. What most people consider to be the smell of the sea is rotting seaweed, giving off an iodine smell. Seaweed is often cleaned up on swimming beaches now, so you won't get as much.

It was rotten seaweed you could smell - mostly bladderwrack.

My grandparents used to say it was the smell of ozone.

Sea smells fishy, not like salt. Salt is odourless, so what are you even talking about?

Fair enough, must be the seaweed that I’m noticing and not the sea. Thanks for all of the responses that weren’t sarcastic and condescending for no reason whatsoever.

I was thinking this as a fellow coast dweller, I know the smell OP means and I don’t think it’s the salt it’s the dislodged seaweed after a high tide

In your childhood memory were you also eating crisps?

Two posters made jokes. Everybody else gave a sensible explanation as to why you think what you do. Nobody was being sarcastic or condescending.

Oh dear

no more
"salt air and the rust on your door"

"dislodged seaweed after a high tide .. and the rust on your door" does NOT work 😂

@SharkBaitOooHaha I know what you mean about the salt smell. And so does Taylor!

Some beaches smell salty. Not seaweed. That’s a different smell. And yes I do know what you mean op, I have had similar thoughts but put it down to childhood memory nostalgia making the memory stronger iyswim.

Did you just make this up?

No there's been quite a few scientific articles about it if you spend 5 minutes on Google you'll find loads some by crancks and some by reputable scientists which has been peer reviewed

You were smelling the seaweed, not the salt.