title: Ocean salinities reveal strong global water cycle intensification during 1950 to 2000.
abstract: 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 ± 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.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. pauldurack@llnl.gov
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Durack
authors.forename: Susan E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Wijffels
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Matear