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Observed poleward freshwater transport since 1970
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Journal Article
Observed poleward freshwater transport since 1970
2022
Overview
Warming-induced global water cycle changes pose a significant challenge to global ecosystems and human society. However, quantifying historical water cycle change is difficult owing to a dearth of direct observations, particularly over the ocean, where 77% and 85% of global precipitation and evaporation occur, respectively
1
–
3
. Air–sea fluxes of freshwater imprint on ocean salinity such that mean salinity is lowest in the warmest and coldest parts of the ocean, and is highest at intermediate temperatures
4
. Here we track salinity trends in the warm, salty fraction of the ocean, and quantify the observed net poleward transport of freshwater in the Earth system from 1970 to 2014. Over this period, poleward freshwater transport from warm to cold ocean regions has occurred at a rate of 34–62 milli-sverdrups (mSv = 10
3
m
3
s
−1
), a rate that is not replicated in the current generation of climate models (the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6)). In CMIP6 models, surface freshwater flux intensification in warm ocean regions leads to an approximately equivalent change in ocean freshwater content, with little impact from ocean mixing and circulation. Should this partition of processes hold for the real world, the implication is that the historical surface flux amplification is weaker (0.3–4.6%) in CMIP6 compared with observations (3.0–7.4%). These results establish a historical constraint on poleward freshwater transport that will assist in addressing biases in climate models.
A study uses a temperature-percentile water mass framework to analyse warm-to-cold poleward transport of freshwater in the Earth system, and establishes a constraint to help address biases in climate models.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
