Atmosphere Ocean Science Friday Seminar

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Estimating Amplification of Freshwater Fluxes using Linear Response Theory

Speaker: Aurora Basinski, CAOS

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1314

Date: Friday, October 14, 2022, 4 p.m.

Synopsis:

Under anthropogenic forcing, we expect that the global evaporation minus precipitation pattern will strengthen. Estimates of change in the hydrological cycle over the historical record are often inferred from evolving salinity distributions, as direct measurements of freshwater fluxes are difficult. Here, we present a method using linear response theory to estimate freshwater fluxes while accounting for the change in local salinity due to ocean transport. We validate the method by applying it to data from the CESM large ensemble and find that the true amplification of freshwater fluxes is identified. Finally, we apply this method to observations over the period 1975 to 2019 and find an amplification of freshwater fluxes within the error bounds of previous results.