Investigating the role of the southern ocean on global climate change

The Southern Ocean (SO) is an important contributor in determining how the Earth's climate is changing. The SO plays a major role in global ocean circulation, a system of surface and deep currents, linking all oceans and one of the fundamental determinants of the Earth's climate. Despite the recent increase in our understanding of the SO system, there is still uncertainty in the fluxes and transport of fresh and salt water within this region. Additionally, waters at mid-depth in the SO have increased in temperature at a faster rate than the average rate for the entire global ocean. In this study we used Sea surface salinity (SSS) derived from the NASA's Aquarius/SAC-D salinity mission to estimate surface salt fluxes. Depth-integrated salt and volume transports will be estimated using Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) reanalysis. The upper 2000m of the Southern Ocean has noted the most intensified change in temperature and salinity. Additional analysis with SODA reanalysis showed the changing transports at each of the basin's boundaries, increasing meridional magnitude and decreasing in zonal. Transports are important as the relationship to movement of salt, heat, gases, etc., and can be used to suggest the intensification of the water cycle.