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Eddy‐Induced Meridional Salt Flux and Its Impacts on the Sea Surface Salinity Maxima in the Southern Subtropical Oceans
Author(s) -
Qu Tangdong,
Lian Zhan,
Nie Xunwei,
Wei Zexun
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl084807
Subject(s) - salinity , oceanography , subtropics , eddy , geology , flux (metallurgy) , climatology , zonal and meridional , precipitation , environmental science , geography , meteorology , turbulence , fishery , materials science , metallurgy , biology
Energetic eddy activities are observed in the southern subtropical oceans. Among the three ocean basins, eddies are most active in the subtropical south Indian Ocean, where they induce a northward salt flux in the north and a southward salt flux in the south, resulting in a divergence of salt in the central part of the basin. Further analysis of satellite‐sea surface salinity observations shows that eddy‐induced meridional salt flux takes more than half of the salt gain from the excess of evaporation over precipitation out of the sea surface salinity maximum region in the south Indian Ocean, while this ratio falls below 19% in the South Pacific and 12% in the South Atlantic. The result may partially explain why salinity of the sea surface salinity maximum in the south Indian Ocean is the lowest among the three southern subtropical oceans.