Salt spray

NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory describes the origin plainly: when waves break on the open ocean, they throw particles called sea spray aerosols into the atmosphere. NOAA calls sea spray aerosols the most abundant natural aerosol in Earth's atmosphere, and says they are made up primarily of salt.

That is written about the open ocean. NOAA's article gives the mechanism and gives no figure for how far those particles travel inland or how much settles on a coast.

UF/IFAS Extension Escambia County describes the step onto land: as waves crash on the shore, salt particles in the air and beach blow inland, which it calls wind-borne salt spray. The National Weather Service separately defines a sea breeze as a thermally produced wind blowing during the day from a cool ocean surface onto the adjoining warm land; that definition does not mention salt, so each stays with the source that wrote it.

Salt carried in the air lands as a deposit. PGT, CGI and WinDoor name it on two parts of their products, and neither is the glass: salt spray deposits on aluminum frames, where wax applied before cleaning may seal them in and allow corrosion, and salt among the deposits on screens. No source read measures how much salt reaches a pane; the everyday name for salt left on glass is salt film.

Why glass near the water soils as it does is answered at why windows get dirty so fast near the beach, and whether the side of a house facing the water needs more cleaning is answered, without any measured difference for glass, at whether Gulf-facing windows need more cleaning. What salt air does to the rest of a home is at salt air and a home's exterior, and the coastal cleaning interval PGT, CGI and WinDoor publish for their own products is on the service page at exterior window cleaning near the coast.