Evaporation From the Southern Ocean Estimatedon the Basis of AIRS Satellite Data ...

• Main Authors: Boisvert, Linette, Vihma, Timo, Shie, Chung‐Lin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2019
• Subjects: Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Ross Sea; Merra; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2xso5-sq8f; http://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/17227

Evaporation plays an important role in the global water and energy cycles and, hence, in climate change. Evaporation over the Southern Ocean, where the Antarctic sea ice coverage has a large annual cycle, is poorly quantified. In this study, daily evaporation is estimated for the Southern Ocean with a sea‐ice‐specific algorithm, using surface temperature and air humidity from National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), and wind speeds from Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA‐2), reanalysis during 2003–2016. An uncertainty of 34% was found in the evaporation product. The results indicate that annual evaporation has considerable interannual and regional variability, but with a decreasing trend during the study period over most of the Southern Ocean. There are, however, areas where evaporation has increased, specifically in the Ross Sea in winter and summer, with smaller positive trends in spring and fall. Overall, the ...