salinity

Seasonal variability of rainfall (colored), sea surface current field (black arrows), wind field (white arrows), and salinity in the Indonesian seas. Credit: IOCAS The Makassar Strait throughflow (MST) accounts for approximately 77% of the total volume transport of the Indonesian throughflow (ITF), and it influences mass and heat exchanges between the Indo-Pacific basin and global climate.…

Sean Bothwell can understand why people think desalination is a silver bullet. When he was a kid living in California’s Orange County, the ocean was always close by. It didn’t make sense to him that all the water near him wasn’t usable.“I grew up thinking, like, why the heck aren’t we desalinating?” said Bothwell, who is now executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. “Why are people always saying that we need to save water and conserve?”Now, a few decades later, California is in an even more dire…

The estimated Var (a quantification of salinity subgrid variability) of in situ observations in this study. The original (a, c) and objectively analyzed fields (b, d) are presented for the depths of 20 m (a, b) and 300 m (c, d), respectively, as two examples. Credit: Earth System Science Data (2022). DOI: 10.5194/essd-14-5037-2022 As a key parameter of sea water, salinity plays a vital role in regulating ocean density,…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Researchers at the University of Toronto have identified the mechanism responsible for the formation of temperature and salinity "staircases" in the Arctic Ocean, resolving a mystery that has confounded oceanographers and climatologists alike for more than half a century. …

Utah’s Great Salt Lake is smaller and saltier than at any time in recorded history. In July, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the world’s third-largest saline lake had dropped to the lowest level ever documented. And last week researchers measured the highest salt concentrations ever seen in the lake’s southern arm, a key bird habitat. Salinity has climbed to 18%, exceeding a threshold at which essential microorganisms begin to die. The trends, driven by drought…