Maintenance and Broadening of the Ocean's Salinity Distribution by the Water Cycle
Maintenance and Broadening of the Ocean's Salinity Distribution by the Water Cycle
复制标题
水循环维持和扩大海洋盐度分布
DOI：
10.1175/jcli-d-15-0273.1
复制
发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Skliris N
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Skliris N
全球水循环通过蒸发和降水在海洋盐度上留下了印记。有人提出，观测到的盐度变化可以用来推断水循环的变化。在这里，盐度是通过水团在盐度坐标中的分布来表征的。只有淡水和盐分的混合以及源和汇才能改变这种分布。混合会破坏分布，使咸水变得更新鲜，淡水变得更咸。因此，在稳定状态下，淡水上必须有净降水，咸水上必须有净蒸发。建立了一个简单的模型来描述分布的广度、水的循环和混合之间的关系-后者用电子折叠时间尺度来表征。在观测和最先进的海洋模型中，水循环保持盐度在稳定状态下的分布，混合时间尺度约为50年。同样简单的模型预测了盐度分布对水循环变化的反应。这项研究表明，对海洋盐度变化的观察可以用来推断水文循环的变化。
The global water cycle leaves an imprint on ocean salinity through evaporation and precipitation. It has been proposed that observed changes in salinity can be used to infer changes in the water cycle. Here salinity is characterized by the distribution of water masses in salinity coordinates. Only mixing and sources and sinks of freshwater and salt can modify this distribution. Mixing acts to collapse the distribution, making saline waters fresher and fresh waters more saline. Hence, in steady state, there must be net precipitation over fresh waters and net evaporation over saline waters. A simple model is developed to describe the relationship between the breadth of the distribution, the water cycle, and mixing—the latter being characterized by ane-folding time scale. In both observations and a state-of-the-art ocean model, the water cycle maintains a salinity distribution in steady state with a mixing time scale of the order of 50 yr. The same simple model predicts the response of the salinity distribution to a change in the water cycle. This study suggests that observations of changes in ocean salinity could be used to infer changes in the hydrological cycle.