What is it about?
Salinity variations can give us insight into long term changes in the freshwater budget of the oceans, which comprise most of the global water cycle. This paper provides evidence of an intensification of the global water cycle in response to global warming.
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Why is it important?
Changes in the distribution of freshwater could have substantial impacts on the availability of water for agriculture, particularly in regions already susceptible to drought or flooding. With over 5 years of salinity observations from the SMOS and Aquarius satellite missions, we now have a true global coverage that will aid us in diagnosing long term salinity changes pertaining to the response of the water cycle to a changing climate.
Perspectives
The timing of this study could not be better, as we have already begun to see the impacts of increased evaporation in the subtropics and increased precipitation in the subpolar latitudes in both marine and terrestrial systems.
Mr Bryce Andrew Melzer
Perspecta
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Investigating decadal changes in sea surface salinity in oceanic subtropical gyres, Geophysical Research Letters, September 2015, American Geophysical Union (AGU),
DOI: 10.1002/2015gl065636.
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