Bowing
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Starting in 2015, an increasing number of salinity sensors on Argo floats, a key component of the ocean observing system, have shown a tendency to drift towards higher salinity levels. Although the affected salinity data are flagged with quality control markers, analyses that fail to exclude these raw data may lead to biased and elevated salinity estimates.
Liu et al. [2024] reveal that most of the examined products have demonstrated an unrealistic rise in global mean salinity, corresponding to a halosteric sea level fall of approximately −1 millimeter/year. The inconsistency among these products has tripled during the 2015–2019 period. Concurrently, salinity data products from different institutions have begun to show greater inconsistencies compared to previous decades, and the spatial and temporal characteristics of these discrepancies remain unquantified.
These findings highlight the need for a thorough evaluation of gridded ocean data products prior to their application. It also calls for collaborative effort among research teams, alongside regular re-evaluation, to accurately identify the underlying causes of these issues and enhance the reliability of gridded salinity products.
Citation: Liu, C., Liang, X., Ponte, R. M., & Chambers, D. P. (2024). “Salty Drift” of Argo floats affects the gridded ocean salinity products. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 129, e2023JC020871. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JC020871
—Lei Zhou, Editor, JGR: Oceans
