Ocean Salinities Reveal Strong Global Water Cycle Intensification During 1950 to 2000
Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier
and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming. Efforts to detect this long-term
response in sparse surface observations of rainfall and evaporation remain ambiguous. We show
that ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of an intensifying water cycle.
Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate
models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 T 5% per degree
of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate
models and suggests that a substantial (16 to 24%) intensification of the global water cycle will
occur in a future 2° to 3° warmer world.
SCIENCE VOL 336
Publication Date: 2012
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