Analyzing the 2010–2011 La Niña signature in the tropical Pacific sea surface salinity using in situ data, SMOS observations, and a numerical simulation

Hasson, Audrey; Delcroix, Thierry; Boutin, Jacqueline; Dussin, Raphaël; Ballabrera-Poy, Joaquim

doi:10.1002/2013jc009388

Cited by 43 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Hasson et al . [] also noticed worse agreements with thermosalinograph data in the western Pacific Ocean than in the eastern Pacific Ocean likely due to RFI coming from islands. The very low salinity in the SMOS SSS near the coast at 80°W is, however, due to the land contamination in the satellite salinity retrieval.…”

Section: Relation Between Sss Changes and Local Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An exception can be seen during 2010, when the spring mixed layer depth exceeds 40 m, supporting the hypothesis of Masunaga and L'Ecuyer [] that interannual variability may be partially related to modulations of the depth of the mixed layer. The temperature in late 2005, 2007, and 2010 is minimum in this time series, at least in 2010 probably related to the La Niña phase during that year [ Hasson et al ., ].…”

Section: Eastern Tropical Pacific Salinity Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, uppermost measurement points typically reside at or below a depth of 5 m. Regarding observations of surface salinity, the data coverage was therefore especially improved through the satellite mission “Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity” (SMOS) from the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in November 2009 [ Kerr et al ., ; Font et al ., ], and later through the “Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas‐D” (SAC‐D) mission, launched in June 2011 and developed jointly by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Argentine space agency Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE) [ Le Vine et al ., ; Lagerloef , ]. Through these two satellite missions, sea surface salinity (SSS) observations are presently available through L‐band radiometry with a spatial resolution between 50 km (SMOS) and 150 km (Aquarius), offering an unprecedented global view of surface salinity variations [e.g., Hasson et al ., ; Xie et al ., ; Reagan et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pacific Ocean surface freshwater variability underneath the double ITCZ as seen by satellite sea surface salinity retrievals

Martins

Stammer

2015

JGR Oceans

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The salinity budget of the upper tropical Pacific Ocean underneath the double Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is studied using the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Aquarius surface salinity observations as well as in situ salinity measurements. In this shallow mixed layer region of the ocean, precipitation effects on the near‐surface salinity budget are large, typically leading to a band of fresh sea surface salinity (SSS) between March and June. The role of precipitation during the freshening period is documented here through a direct correlation between the SMOS SSS fields and the monthly accumulated precipitation. During the same period, the mixed layer salinity budget is impacted by advection, which, based on in situ observations, is found to be another important mechanism for the evolution of the near‐surface salinity as documented through a connection between the north equatorial eastern Pacific Fresh water pool and this south equatorial freshwater pattern in boreal spring. However, given the information at hand, the near‐surface salinity budget cannot be closed, suggesting that other processes are important too, such as nonlinear effects, mixing, and entrainment.

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Section: Relation Between Sss Changes and Local Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Eastern Tropical Pacific Salinity Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pacific Ocean surface freshwater variability underneath the double ITCZ as seen by satellite sea surface salinity retrievals

Martins

Stammer

2015

JGR Oceans

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“…Using SSS as a rain gauge is however not trivial as it requires a precise estimation of other processes contributing to it, in particular ocean circulation processes often found to be on the same order of magnitude but opposite to the atmospheric flux [e.g., Durand et al, 2013;Hasson et al, 2014]. In the case of the satellite measurements, this is even more complicated by the fact that L-band radiometry senses the salinity in the first centimeter of the sea surface, S 1cm , which, under rainfall, may be much affected by surface stratification [e.g., Soloviev and Lukas, 1996;Reverdin et al, 2012].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea surface salinity under rain cells: SMOS satellite and in situ drifters observations

et al. 2014

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We study the signature of rainfall on S 1cm , the sea surface salinity retrieved from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite mission first by comparing SMOS S 1cm with ARGO sea surface salinity measured at about 5 m depth in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and in the Southern Pacific Convergence Zone; second by investigating spatial variability of SMOS S 1cm related to rainfall. The resulting estimated S 1cm decrease associated with rainfall occurring within less than 1 h from the salinity measurement is close to 20.2 pss (mm h 21 ) 21. We estimate that rain induced roughness and atmospheric effects are responsible for no more than 20% of this value. We also study the signature of rainfall on sea surface salinity measured by surface drifters at 45 cm depth and find a decrease associated with rainfall of 20.21 (60.14) pss (mm h 21 ) 21, consistent with SMOS observations. When averaged over one month, this rain associated salinity decrease is at most 20.2 in monthly 100 3 100 km 2 pixels, and at most 40% of the difference between SMOS S 1cm and interpolated in situ bulk salinity in pixels near the ITCZ. This suggests that more than half of this difference is related to the in situ products obtained from optimal interpolation and therefore influenced by smoothing and relaxation to climatology. Finally, further studies on the satellite-derived salinities should pay attention to that as well as to other sources of uncertainties in satellite measurements and not interpret fully the observed differences between in situ and satellite mapped products, as rain induced SSS variability.

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“…Recently, SMOS data have been used to study salinity variability in the Atlantic [33], the signature of La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean [34] and even create surface temperature/salinity (T/S) diagrams [35]. The data is in constant evolution as more elaborate techniques are applied to the retrieval Olmedo et al [36].…”

Section: Smos Satellite Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Regime Changes in Global Sea Surface Salinity Trend

Aretxabaleta

Smith

Kalra

2017

JMSE

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Abstract:Recent studies have shown significant sea surface salinity (SSS) changes at scales ranging from regional to global. In this study, we estimate global salinity means and trends using historical SSS data from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre objectively analyzed monthly fields and recent data from the SMOS satellite (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). We separate the different components (regimes) of the global surface salinity by fitting a Gaussian Mixture Model to the data and using expectation-maximization to distinguish the means and trends of the data. The procedure uses a non-subjective method (Bayesian information criterion) to extract the optimal number of means and trends. The results show the presence of three separate regimes: Regime A (1950Regime A ( -1990) is characterized by small trend magnitudes; Regime B (1990-2009) exhibited enhanced trends; and Regime C (2009-2014) with significantly larger trend magnitudes. The salinity differences between regime means were around 0.01. The trend acceleration could be related to an enhanced global hydrological cycle or to a change in the sampling methodology. Understanding past SSS changes can provide insight into future climate evolution by complementing the knowledge acquired in recent decades from long-term temperature record analyses.

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Analyzing the 2010–2011 La Niña signature in the tropical Pacific sea surface salinity using in situ data, SMOS observations, and a numerical simulation

Cited by 43 publications

References 57 publications

Pacific Ocean surface freshwater variability underneath the double ITCZ as seen by satellite sea surface salinity retrievals

Pacific Ocean surface freshwater variability underneath the double ITCZ as seen by satellite sea surface salinity retrievals

Sea surface salinity under rain cells: SMOS satellite and in situ drifters observations

Regime Changes in Global Sea Surface Salinity Trend

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