Sea surface salinity as a proxy for Arctic Ocean freshwater changes ...

• Main Author: Fournier, Severine
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Root 2023
• Subjects: Arctic Basin; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48577/jpl.qb1ies; https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/citation?persistentId=doi:10.48577/jpl.QB1IES

The changing Arctic freshwater content and distribution have significant implications for ocean circulation, climate, and water and biogeochemical cycles. The paucity of in-situ salinity measurements in the Arctic Ocean has limited our ability to study Arctic-Ocean freshwater variability. Although satellite-derived sea surface height (SSH) and ocean bottom pressure (OBP) have been used together to infer depth-integrated freshwater content changes, these measurements are limited in sampling and resolution. Motivated by the recent development of sea surface salinity (SSS) remote sensing, we explore the use of SSS as a proxy for Arctic freshwater changes. As a first step, here we conduct a proof-of-concept study by analyzing the output of an ocean-ice state estimation product. We find that SSS variations are coherent with those of SSH-minus-OBP across the Arctic basin (with R ~ -0.8) except for in the center of the Beaufort Gyre and the region affected by the subpolar North Atlantic inflow. On Arctic shelves, ...