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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • climate change
  • ocean salinity
  • climate variability

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability
  • Global Change: Oceans
  • Oceanography: Physical: Decadal ocean variability

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L21702, 5 PP., 2008
doi:10.1029/2008GL035874

Detection and attribution of Atlantic salinity changes

Peter A. Stott

Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

Rowan T. Sutton

Meteorology Department, University of Reading, Reading, UK

Doug M. Smith

Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

An analysis of observed and modeled oceanic salinity changes shows that significant changes of salinity, which are predicted in the World's oceans as a result of human influence, are beginning to emerge. A significant increase in salinity has been observed in recent decades in the 20N–50N latitude band of the Atlantic ocean, although changes at sub-polar latitudes of the Atlantic, and in other ocean basins, are not found to be significant compared to modeled internal variability. An optimal detection analysis of spatial patterns of salinity trends detects a human influence on the observed salinity increases in the Atlantic ocean. These results indicate the growing potential for using observations to constrain important properties of the climate system's response to anthropogenic forcing.

Received 1 September 2008; accepted 6 October 2008; published 8 November 2008.

Citation: Stott, P. A., R. T. Sutton, and D. M. Smith (2008), Detection and attribution of Atlantic salinity changes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L21702, doi:10.1029/2008GL035874.

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