HR: 0830h
AN: OS21C-1135    [PDF]
TI: Multi-year variability of salinity of the northern hemisphere oceans
AU: * Boyer, T
EM: tim.boyer@noaa.gov
AF: NODC/NOA, E/OC5, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910 United States
AU: Antonov, J
EM: john.antonov@noaa.gov
AF: NODC/NOA, E/OC5, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910 United States
AU: Levitus, S
EM: sydney.levitus@noaa.gov
AF: NODC/NOA, E/OC5, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910 United States
AB: We use the data in "World Ocean Database 2001" to composite salinity data for multi-year periods for the northern hemisphere oceans with emphasis on the North Atlantic Ocean. Many of the data used are available as a result of the IOC sponsored "Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue" project. Our analysis documents and expands the work of Dickson et al. (1988) and Belkin et al. (1998) which were mainly based on coastal time series which have good temporal resolution. Our composite fields have better spatial resolution but much poorer time resolution. Our results clearly show gyre and basin scale changes in salinity. For example, a crude description of some of our results can be summarized as: high salinity occurred in all or part of the Labrador Sea during 1959-63, 1974-78. Low salinity occurred during 1967-71 and 1980-86. The outlook for the continued acquisition of historical salinity data is good which will allow improved temporal resolution for our future analyses.
DE: 1635 Oceans (4203)
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting