EGU24-13207, updated on 09 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-13207
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Unprecedented changes in the Southern Ocean detected by satellites

Alessandro Silvano1, Rafael Catany2,3, Estrella Olmedo4, Veronica González-Gambau4, Antonio Turiel4, Carolina Gabarró4, Aina García-Espriu4, Cristina González-Haro4, F. Alexander Haumann5,6,7, Aditya Narayanan1, Alberto Naveira Garabato1, and Roberto Sabia8
Alessandro Silvano et al.
  • 1University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (a.silvano@soton.ac.uk)
  • 2ARGANS Ltd., Plymouth Science Park, 1 Davy Road, PLYMOUTH, PL6 8BX
  • 3Albavalor, SL. Calle Catedratico Dr. D. Agustin Escardino Benlloch, 9, Parque Cienti. 46980, Paterna (Valencia). España
  • 4Barcelona Expert Center on Remote Sensing, Institut de Ciències del Mar, CSIC, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
  • 5Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany
  • 6Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
  • 7Department of Geography, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany
  • 8ESA-ESRIN, Largo Galileo Galilei, 1 - 00044 Frascati (Rome), Italy

The Southern Ocean has experienced unprecedented changes since 2016. Most notably are 1) a reduction in sea ice cover and 2) the appearance of offshore polynyas not seen since the 1970s. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain both these events, including atmospheric (e.g. winds, atmospheric rivers) and oceanic (e.g. upwelling) drivers. To help explain what has occurred over the past decade we use the first regional product of sea surface salinity (SSS) in the Southern Ocean derived by satellites as part of the SO-FRESH project. We combine this new dataset with sea ice observations from satellites as well as with in situ observations and models to show that both atmospheric and oceanic processes are involved in the observed changes, highlighting the complexity of the ice-ocean-atmosphere system in the Southern Ocean.

 

How to cite: Silvano, A., Catany, R., Olmedo, E., González-Gambau, V., Turiel, A., Gabarró, C., García-Espriu, A., González-Haro, C., Haumann, F. A., Narayanan, A., Naveira Garabato, A., and Sabia, R.: Unprecedented changes in the Southern Ocean detected by satellites, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-13207, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-13207, 2024.