Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 28 Issue 01

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Volume 28, No. 1
Pages 66 - 77

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Variability in Near-Surface Salinity from Hours to Decades in the Eastern North Atlantic: The SPURS Region

By Stephen C. Riser , Jessica Anderson, Andrey Shcherbina, and Eric D’Asaro  
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Article Abstract

We examine the variability of near-surface salinity in a 10° × 10° region of the eastern North Atlantic, the location of the first part of the Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study (SPURS-1). The data used were collected over a two-year period, largely by a group of two types of profiling floats equipped with sensors that record high-resolution temperature and salinity measurements in the upper few meters of the water column. By comparing the SPURS-1 measurements to observations in the area from previous decades, we examine variability at time scales ranging from a few hours (mostly consisting of rainfall-driven decreases in salinity) to diurnal cycles in temperature and salinity, seasonal variability and the annual cycle, and finally to decadal-scale changes. The relationship of near-surface salinity to the hydrological cycle suggests a continuous spectrum of variability in this cycle from hours to decades.

Citation

Riser, S.C., J. Anderson, A. Shcherbina, and E. D’Asaro. 2015. Variability in near-surface salinity from hours to decades in the eastern North Atlantic: The SPURS region. Oceanography 28(1):66–77, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.11.

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Copyright & Usage

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.