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The Role of Salinity in Pacific Surface Height Variability and in Diagnosing |
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the Hydrological Cycle |
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Elizabeth Douglass, Dean Roemmich, John Gilson, Detlef Stammer |
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Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla CA 92093-0230 USA |
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We present a preliminary analysis of Argo data, XCTD profiles, and results from |
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the ECCO assimilation project with respect to the role of salinity in the variability |
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of seasurface height and the use of salinity measurements to improve our understan |
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ding of the hydrological cycle in the ocean. |
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The Argo Project part of the legacy of WOCE - marks the first globally repeating |
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measurements of subsurface salinity, with the data freely available in near real-time. |
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A sparse but rapidly growing Argo array is now operating in the tropical Pacific, |
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returning temperature and salinity profiles every 10 days from 1000 m to the sea surface. |
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These data, plus XCTD profiles from several High Resolution XBT/XCTD lines, are used to |
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assess the quality of results from data assimilation activities in the Pacific Ocean. |
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A synthesis of the data and a model will then be used to understand the magnitude of |
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salinity variability and its contribution to density and sea surface height. They are |
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also used for diagnosing precipitation minus evaporation (P-E) anomalies, both locally |
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in surface waters, and remotely in subducted water masses. Substantial interannual signals |
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in salinity occur in the upper Pacific Ocean, whose understanding will help to unravel |
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the puzzle of ENSO and other modes of cl imate variabilty. |
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