US CLIVAR Salinity Working Group

U.S. CLIVAR Salinity Working Group last updated June 8, 2006
*Name*	*Affiliation*	*Term*
Tim Boyer	NOAA - NODC
Jim Carton (co-chair)	University of Maryland
Yi Chao	Jet Propulsion Lab
Arnold Gordon	Columbia Univ/LDEO
Greg Johnson	NOAA - PMEL
Gary Lagerloef	ESR
Bill Large	NCAR
Steve Riser	University of Washington
Ray Schmitt (co-chair)	WHOI

Terms of Reference

Describe the role of ocean salinity in the global water cycle, global ocean circulation, and climate variability (including trends);
Identify the requirements and challenges for analyzing, observing, and monitoring salinity, as well as simulate processes critical for determining the ocean's role in transport and storage of salinity;
Provide guidance to NASA (and the international community) on observational and scientific activities that should be considered in advance of and during the Aquarius mission to improve our measurement, analysis, and utilization of salinity information for the purposes stated above
Report within one year to the U.S. CLIVAR Phenomena, Observation and Synthesis panel on the above objectives.

Special Session Planned at Ocean Sciences Meeting in Hawaii (February 2006)
THE ROLE OF OCEAN SALINITY IN CLIMATE

OS093
Conveners: James Carton, Ray Schmitt and Gary Lagerloef

Ocean salinity is a key variable related to the interactions between the Earthís water cycle, ocean circulation and climate. Understanding its importance in climate variability involves studying topics such as (1) the influence of salinity variability on tropical dynamics and ENSO, (2) large scale salinity changes in mid to high latitudes that influence mode water formation and ocean convective overturning circulation and (3) closure of the global ocean-atmosphere freshwater balance. This session welcomes presentations on these general topics and other processes that define the role of ocean salinity in climate.
Salinity Workshop at Woods Hole 8-10 May 2006 - click here for a detailed announcement and meeting logistics.

Hu, Chuanmin, E.T. Montgomery, R.W. Schmitt, and F.E. Muller-Karger, 2004. The dispeFrsal of the Amazon and Orinoco River water in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea: Observation from space and S-PALACE floats. Deep-Sea Research II (51), pp. 1151-1171. (PDF)
Schmitt, Raymond W., 1995. The ocean component of the global water cycle. Reviews of Geophysics, Supplement, (7) pp. 1395-1409. (PDF)

Curry, Ruth and Cecilie Mauritzen, 17 June 2005. Dilution of the Northern North Atlantic Ocean in Recent Decades. Science, pp. 1772-1774.
Johnson, Gregory C. and Nicholas Gruber, 2005. Decadal Water Mass Variations Along 20W in the Northeastern Atlantic Ocean, Progress in Oceanography (submitted),(PDF)

Johnson, Gregory, 2005. Generation and Initial Evolution of a Mode Water q-S Anomaly, Journal of Physical Oceanography (submitted). (PDF)