Isotopic evidence for an intensified hydrological cycle in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean

Camille Hayatte Akhoudas (), Jean-Baptiste Sallée, Gilles Reverdin, F. Alexander Haumann, Etienne Pauthenet, Christopher C. Chapman, Félix Margirier, Claire Lo Monaco, Nicolas Metzl, Julie Meilland and Christian Stranne
Additional contact information
Camille Hayatte Akhoudas: Stockholm University
Jean-Baptiste Sallée: CNRS/IRD/MNHN, LOCEAN, Sorbonne Université
Gilles Reverdin: CNRS/IRD/MNHN, LOCEAN, Sorbonne Université
F. Alexander Haumann: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Etienne Pauthenet: LOPS, CNRS/IFREMER/IRD/UBO, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer
Christopher C. Chapman: CSIRO Environment, Earth Systems Science Program
Félix Margirier: Georgia Institute of Technology
Claire Lo Monaco: CNRS/IRD/MNHN, LOCEAN, Sorbonne Université
Nicolas Metzl: CNRS/IRD/MNHN, LOCEAN, Sorbonne Université
Julie Meilland: MARUM, University of Bremen
Christian Stranne: Stockholm University

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract The hydrological cycle is expected to intensify in a warming climate. However, observational evidence of such changes in the Southern Ocean is difficult to obtain due to sparse measurements and a complex superposition of changes in precipitation, sea ice, and glacial meltwater. Here we disentangle these signals using a dataset of salinity and seawater oxygen isotope observations collected in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Our results show that the atmospheric water cycle has intensified in this region between 1993 and 2021, increasing the salinity in subtropical surface waters by 0.06 ± 0.07 g kg−1 per decade, and decreasing the salinity in subpolar surface waters by -0.02 ± 0.01 g kg−1 per decade. The oxygen isotope data allow to discriminate the different freshwater processes showing that in the subpolar region, the freshening is largely driven by the increase in net precipitation (by a factor two) while the decrease in sea ice melt is largely balanced by the contribution of glacial meltwater at these latitudes. These changes extend the growing evidence for an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and a melting cryosphere that can be expected from global warming.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38425-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-38425-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38425-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().