Ocean salinities reveal strong global water cycle intensification during 1950 to 2000

Ocean salinities reveal strong global water cycle intensification during 1950 to 2000 [1]

Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming. Efforts to detect this long-term response in sparse surface observations of rainfall and evaporation remain ambiguous. We show that ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of an intensifying water cycle. Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 ± 5% per degree of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate models and suggests that a substantial (16 to 24%) intensification of the global water cycle will occur in a future 2° to 3° warmer world.

Publication Date:

27/04/2012

Author(s): Paul J. Durack [2], Susan E. Wijffels [3], Richard J. Matear [4]

Source: Science [5]

Vol:

336

Issue:

6080

pp:

455-458

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