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December 2003
Global warming: Salty tropics
A comparison of salinity differences across a long transect in the Atlantic Ocean over a 40-year period adds to the growing body of evidence that shifts in the distribution of saline and fresh waters are occurring worldwide as a result of global warming. Salinity has increased in the tropical Atlantic Ocean while water masses at both high-latitude ends of the transect have become fresher. This is in line with expected changes to the hydrological cycle in a warmer world. It has been difficult to demonstrate that this is happening on a global scale, but continued monitoring of ocean salinity levels is one way of gathering data on a large enough scale to give a true picture of the global water cycle.
A change in the freshwater balance of the Atlantic
Ocean over the past four decades
RUTH CURRY, BOB DICKSON & IGOR YASHAYAEV
Nature 426, 826–829 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature02206
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