text: A purpose for introducing spiciness is to decrease the amount of state variables needed; the density at constant depth is a function of potential temperature and salinity and of using both, spiciness can be used. If the goal is to only quantify the variation of water parcels along isopycnals, the variation in absolute salinity or temperature can be used instead because it gives the same information with the same amount of variables.
  Another purpose is to examine how the stability ratio  varies vertically on a water column. The stability ratio is a number determining the involvement of temperature changes relative to the involvement salinity changes in a vertical profile, which yields relevant information about the stability of the water column: 
  The vertical variation of this number is often shown in a spiciness-potential density diagram and/or plot, where the angle shows the stability.