Salinity changes in the World Ocean since 1950 in relation to changing surface freshwater fluxes

Skliris, Nikolaos; Marsh, Robert; Josey, Simon A.; Good, Simon; Liu, Chunlei; Allan, Richard P.

doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2131-7

Cited by 169 publications

(239 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…But this scenario is at odds with a slowdown of the overturning circulation that was suggested by DeVries et al (2017). The freshening (−0.03 ± 0.02 decade −1 change in salinity) can be explained by the increase in net precipitation in the subpolar regions of the Southern Hemisphere (Skliris et al 2014;Durack and Wijffels 2010). (2) Change in biological uptake of nutrients in the source waters of the AAIW and in organic matter remineralization: Decreasing productivity in the source region of the AAIW may well explain the increasing nutrient concentrations observed in the AAIW core.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability of nutrients and carbon dioxide in the Antarctic Intermediate Water between 1990 and 2014

et al. 2018

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Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) formation constitutes an important mechanism for the export of macronutrients out of the Southern Ocean that fuels primary production in low latitudes. We used quality-controlled gridded data from five hydrographic cruises between 1990 and 2014 to examine decadal variability in nutrients and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the AAIW (neutral density range 27 < γ n < 27.4) along the Prime Meridian. Significant positive trends were found in DIC (0.70 ± 0.4 μmol kg −1 year −1 ) and nitrate (0.08 ± 0.06 μmol kg −1 year −1 ) along with decreasing trends in temperature (−0.015±0.01 • C year −1 ) and salinity (−0.003±0.002 year −1 ) in the AAIW. Accompanying this is an increase in apparent oxygen utilization (AOU, 0.16 ± 0.07 μmol kg −1 year −1 ). We estimated that 75% of the DIC change has an anthropogenic origin. The remainder of the trends support a scenario of a strengthening of the upper-ocean overturning circulation in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean in response to the positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode. A decrease in net primary productivity (more nutrients unutilized) in the source waters of the AAIW could have contributed as well but cannot fully explain all observed changes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability of nutrients and carbon dioxide in the Antarctic Intermediate Water between 1990 and 2014

et al. 2018

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“…Skliris et al [18] suggested that while water cycle intensification was consistent with the warming trend, it also matched the improved salinity sampling. The availability of extensive field cruises in the last few decades and especially the development of the Argo network of profiling drifters over the last 15 years have altered the quantity, quality and spatial coverage of observations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…The most recent period (2009-2014) might be too short to be considered a robust regime change. The water cycle has been shown to be farther increased in the period 1979-2010 due to accelerated warming [18]. Durack et al [4] analyzed modeling scenarios for the 20th century (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3, CMIP3, [48]) that are consistent with not only a linear increase in hydrological cycle magnitude but also an acceleration of the intensification.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…The OAFlux daily vector wind product aims at providing a long-term daily mean representation for the period that the combined use of scatterometers and radiometers can provide near-global coverage for the majority of the days. The OAFlux surface vector wind, heat flux, and evaporation products on daily resolution have been used in a broad range of research applications [Syed et al, 2010;Hansen et al, 2012;Peterson et al, 2012;Trenberth and Fasullo, 2012;Romanou et al, 2013;Kelly and Dong, 2013] on timescales including synoptic (several days) [e.g., Joyce et al, 2009], seasonal [e.g., Yu, 2011], intraseasonal [e.g., Johnson and Ciesielski, 2013], interannual [e.g., Katsura et al, 2013], and decadal and multidecadal [e.g., Skliris et al, 2014]. As the global climate has been and continues to be changing, the scientific values of a continuous and consistent daily surface vector wind time series from 1987 onward are yet to be discovered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights on the OAFlux ocean surface vector wind analysis merged from scatterometers and passive microwave radiometers (1987 onward)

Jin

2014

JGR Oceans

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A high-resolution global daily analysis of ocean surface vector winds (1987 onward) was developed by the Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes (OAFlux) project. This study addressed the issues related to the development of the time series through objective synthesis of 12 satellite sensors (two scatterometers and 10 passive microwave radiometers) using a least-variance linear statistical estimation. The issues include the rationale that supports the multisensor synthesis, the methodology and strategy that were developed, the challenges that were encountered, and the comparison of the synthesized daily mean fields with reference to scatterometers and atmospheric reanalyses. The synthesis was established on the bases that the low and moderate winds (<15 m s 21 ) constitute 98% of global daily wind fields, and they are the range of winds that are retrieved with best quality and consistency by both scatterometers and radiometers. Yet, challenges are presented in situations of synoptic weather systems due mainly to three factors: (i) the lack of radiometer retrievals in rain conditions, (ii) the inability to fill in the data voids caused by eliminating rainflagged QuikSCAT wind vector cells, and (iii) the persistent differences between QuikSCAT and ASCAT high winds. The study showed that the daily mean surface winds can be confidently constructed from merging scatterometers with radiometers over the global oceans, except for the regions influenced by synoptic weather storms. The uncertainties in present scatterometer and radiometer observations under high winds and rain conditions lead to uncertainties in the synthesized synoptic structures.

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Salinity changes in the World Ocean since 1950 in relation to changing surface freshwater fluxes

Cited by 169 publications

References 73 publications

Variability of nutrients and carbon dioxide in the Antarctic Intermediate Water between 1990 and 2014

Variability of nutrients and carbon dioxide in the Antarctic Intermediate Water between 1990 and 2014

Regime Changes in Global Sea Surface Salinity Trend

Insights on the OAFlux ocean surface vector wind analysis merged from scatterometers and passive microwave radiometers (1987 onward)

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