Global ocean mean salinity (GMS) is a key indicator of the Earth’s hydrological cycle and the exchanges of freshwater between land and ocean, but its determination remains a challenge. Aside from traditional methods based on gridded salinity fields derived from in situ measurements, we explore estimates of GMS based on liquid freshwater changes derived from space gravimetry data corrected for sea ice effects. For the 2005-2019 period analyzed, the different GMS series show little consistency in seasonal, interannual, and long-term variability. In situ estimates show sensitivity to choice of product and unrealistic variations. A suspiciously large rise in GMS since ~ 2015 is enough to measurably affect halosteric sea level estimates and can explain recent discrepancies in the global mean sea level budget. Gravimetry-based GMS estimates are more realistic, inherently consistent with estimated freshwater contributions to global mean sea level, and provide a way to calibrate the in situ estimates.