Water Cycle Study Examines Global Warming, Ocean's Salt Content

By: Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer

Global warming is revving up the planet's cycle of evaporation and precipitation, making wet places even wetter and dry places drier, a new study suggests.

A team of researchers found the intensity of the water cycle increased roughly 4 percent over the last half of the 20th century by examining changes in the ocean's salt content.

This means more movement of water between the locations where it's stored, such as the atmosphere, oceans and lakes. Their results indicate that as a result, salty places are becoming saltier due to more evaporation, while fresh places are becoming fresher due to more precipitation.

A warming world

During the study period, from 1950 to 2000, global surface temperatures rose 0.9 degrees F (0.5 degrees Celsius).

"There are all of these independent lines of evidence that climate is actually changing. What this result provides us with is another piece of the puzzle," said study researcher Paul Durack, a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Not only was the shift in the water cycle observable — with spatial patterns of evaporation and rainfall intensifying over the world's oceans — but the observations agreed with theoretical expectations for how climate change would affect the water cycle, he said. [The World's Weirdest Weather]

An ocean gauge

When looking at how water cycles through the environment — falling as rain or snow, then evaporating, then eventually cycling back as precipitation — it makes sense to look at the oceans. They occupy 71 percent of the planet's surface, and an even larger share of evaporation and precipitation takes place over them.

"The oceans are where all of the action is happening," Durack said.

The ocean surface's salinity, or salt content, increases with evaporation and decreases when more rain falls into the water, serving as a sort of gauge for large-scale patterns. These changes don't last forever; over long periods, ocean circulation driven by winds and large-scale currents redistributes the salt.

For more than a century, scientists have been recording ocean salinity, which is measured by looking at water's ability to conduct electricity. Since salt is composed of charged atoms, called ions, its presence enhances electrical conductance.

In the last decade, a network of floating sensors, called Argo, that collect data from different depths has greatly increased the information available to scientists. Research ships also continue to contribute measurements, according to Durack.

Computer models that make climate-change projections produce more conservative estimates of shifts in the water cycle than those observed, but the models appear to be correctly capturing the nature of the changes, Durack said.

A question of scale

The team's analysis reveals changes over a large geographic scale over the oceans; they expect to see similar changes over the continents. On a smaller scale, however, these changes are expected to become much more complex.

"What is the more interesting question is how regionally those changes will happen," Durack said. "No one actually experiences global mean rainfall; what we experience is our own regional change in rainfall."

The research conducted by scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California appears in the April 27 issue of the journal Science.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

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Comments

[Kenz300]

11:14 AM on 05/29/2012

Every problem is made harder to solve with the worlds ever growing population. Over population is the elephant in the room.

[eaarth2]

06:22 AM on 05/12/2012

with a warming world- wet places will become wetter- though droughts will happen intermittently- and dry places drier- with intermittent extreme precipitation- which will cause flooding.

[barefootcountrygirl]

12:31 PM on 05/01/2012

It said, "theoritical" and "piece of the puzzle", which means they're working on it. We've had lots of places on earth turn to desert and a lot of that was because of loss of trees, I believe. We have lost so much forest and they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. They USE carbon dioxide. So, loss of the forests at such a dramatic pace, will have an impact.

[RudyHaugeneder]

02:32 PM on 04/29/2012

Trees are a critically important factor in global hydrology. And there are fewer and fewer of them as time passes, beginning a couple of thousand years ago as humankind expanded, and accelerating ever since.
For example, largely denuded Europe and Britain were once huge forests. America too, especially along the length of the East Coast -- giant trees and small trees we consider giants today as part of the new normal left around in what is now largely agricultural, urban and industrial land.
And the Amazon rainforest dictates much of North America's precipitation thanks to wind patterns, continues to be destroyed at a breakneck pace despite claims otherwise. The rainfall, evaporation, rainfall pattern that occurs before hitting and slipping over and around the Andes is slowing dramatically in scientific terms, while also collapsing the world's dying lungs. The North American plains are suffering -- less rainfall and more drought, all part of the ever worsening new normal. And it will get worse and worse. We are the culprits.

[barefootcountrygirl]

12:33 PM on 05/01/2012

I just said the same thing without reading your post! It's true! Trees are diminishing at a rapid pace! FIRES, shopping centers, interstate highways, suburbs, etc., and LOGGING!

[Vera Gottlieb]

10:44 AM on 04/29/2012

We have been hearing about all this for the last 20 years already - at nausea!!! How many more years - assuming we have time left, do we have to hear these warnings AND KEEP IGNORING them??? No money on Earth can buy clean water, clean air and clean food if it isn't there to have. Is this so difficult to understand???

[ubrew12]

12:14 PM on 04/29/2012

Conservative ethics: I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.
Liberal ethics: Lets sharpen some sticks and have bear for dinner.

We're trying to get back to the ethics any Cro-Magnon Man would have recognized. But don't worry. Climate change is exponential in time. Most people have now, in their personal experience, recognized that the climate has changed. That represents a 'jump' in their perception. Lets say that 'jump' has taken 40 years to occur. The way the exponential function works is that the next 'jump' will only take 10 years, and the 'jump' after than will only take one or two years. This means that within 5-10 years EVERYBODY is going to want something done about climate change, especially once it is explained to them that once you start doing something about it, the climate won't actually know you are trying to do something for about 25 years (due to the oceans).

On the bright side, once we start doing something about climate change, the cost is estimated to be about 75 cents per person per week (about half a taco a week). Of course, the Libertarians will be out protesting with their signs that read "Give me my half a taco, or give me DEATH!"

[Vera Gottlieb]

01:39 PM on 04/29/2012

It doesn't change the situation but the occasional good sense of humour makes it a bit more bearable. Familiar with the Maya Prophecies and what could possibly happen in December 2012? Worth keeping in mind...I think.

[Reality always bites]

06:10 PM on 05/02/2012

Probably the most naive and underestimated analogy I have ever read regarding climate change.
Congratulations- You really have set back your cause by attacking taco eaters.
Now- your 75c per week.
That may be a very low estimate of the financial cost to the average legal US citizen at todays rates.
However as the US have made no committment to reduce carbon emissions contrary to the committment of many other civilised countries you can afford your half a taco.
Because of the UK committment I pay additional tax on- all energy consuption. Duty on gas (petrol) amounts to seventy percent of the overall cost. (Current prices are $10.4 per gallon, converted so that you understand)
Bleating and using political rhetoric will not alter the fact that so many US citizens are frightened about climate change but some of the rest of the world is actually paying for it.
Enjoy your third rate power supplies and gas guzzling autos while you can.

[Reality always bites]

02:45 PM on 04/28/2012

But with the idea of measuring atmospheric isotopes in real-time still new, the scientists leave nothing to experimental chance. They use every instrument available to them to measure the concentration of heavy oxygen and hydrogen: three autonomous, laser-based analyzers, two satellites, a series of hand-held flasks, and home-built, dry ice-cooled, water traps rigged from surgical tubing and fish tank parts.

The above is copied direct from the original article that inspired this blog- the really interesting bit-

'dry ice-cooled, water traps'

So using CO2 to prove there is more CO2 in the atmosphere is scientific?

No wonder the deniers are having a field day!

[Climate Lurker]

02:47 PM on 04/28/2012

link?

[Reality always bites]

03:11 PM on 04/28/2012

The link is in the article! Near the top.
Sometimes the huff post analysis is insufficient.

[Jim Milks]

03:53 PM on 04/28/2012

That's because they're using the dry ice to measure the moisture in the atmosphere, not CO2 (note: " and home-built, dry ice-cooled, *water* traps rigged from surgical tubing and fish tank parts"). The atmospheric CO2 measurements are made by a separate, very different apparatus.

[Climate Lurker]

04:12 PM on 04/28/2012

Which was my point too, although I didn't read the whole story.

[Reality always bites]

04:22 PM on 04/28/2012

They are still releasing CO2 (Man made) into the atmosphere.
Where is the logic in that!
The article is predominantly about salt in the sea.
May as well measure the water content of the great lakes!

[StephenBP]

10:15 AM on 04/28/2012

This Huffpost article shows that the planet's water cycle is revving up, creating intensification of existing climate tendencies. Wet places are getting wetter, and dry places are getting drier.

This article could have been the basis for a discussion on climate change.

However, attempts to have a discussion about science with climate denialiars always seems to end up going off the rails because, well, they denialie. For instance, denialiars will point to a paper showing that there’s less surface melting at some part of the continent recently than in past years, and ignore the fact that surface melting in one location is only part of the story. They ignore the fact that if you add up the amount of ice in Antarctica through a continent wide survey by satellite gravity measurements, you end up with about 24 cubic miles of loss per year. And, it is accelerating. Whatever evidence you show them, they will counter it with an out of date tidbit from a climate tidbit website.

Denialiars apparently do not want to know the truth. They like truthiness instead. If they can cite some tidbit or anecdote that supports their position, they are happy. If their story is out of date, they don't care. As long as they can get out their sound bite and spread doubt in science, and in the scientific process, they have accomplished their terrorist mission; to hide the truth and to weaken the political power of scientists.

[rpr]

01:16 AM on 05/03/2012

Yup. I have given up on discussing science with deniers a few years ago. It's fruitless. Just like trying (as an atheist) to convince an evangelical Christian that God doesn't exist.
It's way more fun to ridicule them. And it's at least as effective.

[StephenBP]

08:23 AM on 04/28/2012

If we tell the denialiars that the hottest years on record have occurred during the 21st century, they tell us that the climate is not warming.

If we tell the deniliars that Antarctic and Greenland ice is melting based on GRACE satellite data, they tell us that the Antarctic ice is increasing.

If we tell the denialiars that Antarctic and Arctic floating ice is getting thinner and lower in volume, they tell us that it is covering a greater area.

If we show the denialiars evidence that dry places are getting dryer, and wet places are getting wetter, they come back with the lamest unscientific nonsense and say that nothing is happening.

You can almost always tell a denialiar, but you can rarely tell them much.

Have a nice day.

[The last sane American]

09:18 AM on 04/28/2012

1) but no hotter that the 1990's
2) It is. So you might want to explain the discrepancy between the hemispheres.
3) another fact.
4) and if you look at the climatic variations of the last 2000 years you see local shifts in both directions?

There really is no dispute about Global Warming. There is about AGW and blaming every climatic variation on the planet on theories that may show some circumstantial correlation, but fail to explain the total system. The impact of water vapor in the atmosphere seems an area where considerably more understanding is needed.

[gallon]

10:09 AM on 04/28/2012

tlsa: "There really is no dispute about Global Warming. There is about AGW . . . "

There is no dispute among those professionals who are qualified to hold a professional technical opinion on AGW.

[trumphent]

01:23 PM on 04/28/2012

Dispute all you want. There is no dispute that the CO2 above 270ppm is put there by man's activities. None. Nor is there any dispute about the physical properties and effects of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases. None whatsoever. Water vapor is not uniform throughout the atmosphere. CO2 is. It's there all day, all night over the driest places on earth. There is no equivalent of relative humidity for CO2 or any other gas. There already is considerably more understanding than you will admit.

[Chipher]

06:04 AM on 04/28/2012

Uhhh, since there is no new water created, except for the occasional comet debris hitting the upper atmosphere and taking eons to increase the quantity of water, the ocean is, was, and always will be getting more and more and more salty. All they did was sample the obvious, then spin it up into some cracy water cycle theory. It's becoming patently nuts!

(NaturalNews) The vast majority of so-called scientific studies focused on cancer research are inaccurate and potentially fraudulent, suggests a new review published in the journal Nature. A shocking 88 percent of 53 "landmark" studies on cancer that have been published in reputable journals over the years cannot be reproduced, according to the review, which means that their conclusions are patently false.

So if cancer scientists can't even get reproducible results, where did Climate Science (sic) get the exclusive on publishing UNREPRODUCIBLE theories? Are they a legal theocracy?

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

08:04 AM on 04/28/2012

Hey cipher, you are totally wrong on all of this. Water is created every time you burn something. When fuel containing hydrogen and carbon is heated in the presence of oxygen the heat breaks the electron bods holding the carbon and hydrogen to each other. They then combine with oxygen to form water, H2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2.

You would be a lot more believable in your criticism of scientists with Ph.D.s if it were not so blinding obvious that you know absolutely nothing whatsoever about the most basic facts of physics and chemistry. You are like someone who doesn't know what a "wheel" is trying to criticize the builder of a race car.

And as for using "NaturalNews" to find out whether cancer research is accurate, for Pete's sake get real. That's like asking the tobacco companies to review the data on lung cancer.

You seem to have a brain, why don't you try using it to think with? Are you so gullible that you believe any silly story you here? Do you think fluoridation is a communist plot? Do you think Elvis is alive and living in the Bermuda Triangle? Do you think little green men from outer space are watching our every move? Get a grip man. If you keep this up you are going to wind up living under a bridge with aluminum foil wrapped around your head to keep the CIA from beaming thoughts into your brain.

[The last sane American]

09:20 AM on 04/28/2012

Suggest that you present facts and not spend time denigrating other humans.

[jonoruf]

10:13 AM on 04/28/2012

Natural News hits a lot of home runs, and a lot of foul balls.

Cancer research/treatment/causes is very full of misinformation and disinformation. Nutrition can prevent and cure so many illnesses....off topic, sorry ya'll.

[jimboy71]

02:23 PM on 05/02/2012

No, you're entirely wrong about salinity. Salinity is actually controlled in part by biological and physical processes. The range of oceanic salinity has been basically stable for aeons, with variation occuring in shorter time periods, and along regional divides.

[Joaney]

02:56 AM on 04/28/2012

Global warming is a misnomer. People should stop referring to what we're doing to our planet as global warming.It should be called something like- "Destructive, Deadly, Disastrous Global Climate Change"! Saying "Global warming" gives the wrong impression and sounds much, much, much too nice for what we are doing to the planet!

We are killing off more and more species and using up all our resources and polluting and ruining the whole planet at the same time because of "o-v-e-r-p-o-p-u-l-a-t-i-o n"caused by religion and it's policies of: anti-abortion, anti-condom, anti-gay, right to life, be fruitful and multiply, etc, etc, etc...

We are on a disastrous head-on collision course with nature because of overpopulation caused by religion.
Religion put all of Europe in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages never ended. There are still tons of religious people in power and control on the planet.

Either we wipe out religion or get ready for a full blown "Dark Ages 2", to fall upon humanity.
History can, and does repeat itself.

We MUST find a way to stop religion and overpopulation or we are going to suffer horrible, disastrous consequences!!

[Chipher]

06:06 AM on 04/28/2012

You first.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

08:04 AM on 04/28/2012

Get a vasectomy, save the planet.

[The last sane American]

09:22 AM on 04/28/2012

Who created universities?

You might want to pick a history book or two.

[jimboy71]

02:26 PM on 05/02/2012

Who created relevance?

[old soil guy]

10:11 PM on 04/27/2012

The cover photo looks just like one I took in Key West in the late 80's. The sun melting into the ocean. Except I had a sailboat in the photo. I'd never seen the sun set like that before. After all these years I still remember that evening.

[old soil guy]

09:54 PM on 04/27/2012

In my little part of the planet we still get the same total annual precip, and so far the mountain snowpack is about the same. But, the snowpack starts melting sooner, and it doesn't rain as much during the summer. This is noticeable after only 15 yrs. And they predict by 2030 it will no longer snow much in my valley. The farm I grew up on in north-central MT doesn't get nearly as much snow as when I was a kid when we had 20 foot drifts and deep snow. But they are still getting about the same total precip. Some springs it's too wet to plant crops, other years it dries up during the summer. Climate is changing. Whether we can do anything about it, well I don't think we have the political or cultural will to do anything.

[ubrew12]

02:44 AM on 04/28/2012

One of the concerns about global warming is that soils that were once verdent and moist can, upon drying out, release CO2 back into the atmosphere. Also, a big concern with the Amazon rainforest is that when it dries out it switches from being a major CO2 sink to becoming a major CO2 source. And in the last 10 years its had two '500 year' droughts.

[Chipher]

06:13 AM on 04/28/2012

(Science) "In drought years, the Amazon region changes from being a net absorber of carbon dioxide into a net emitter."

That's just massively Big Lie!! There are no all-Amazon tree inventories, and no satellite infrared studies this Big Lie is based on. This is pure propaganda! Sure, if one percent of the trees die, it releases some CO2 slowly, but for the Amazon to become a 'net emitter', over HALF the trees must have died in 2010, and that obviously **isn't happening**

But they got away with the Big Lie, it's been repeated in media all over the world.

You can't trust 'soft science' anymore, they've golden rice bowl tax dole drones.

[old soil guy]

09:03 PM on 04/28/2012

Yes, when wet soils dry they do mineralize more organic matter and release more CO2. Also happens when soils are plowed which stimulates more bacterial decomposition of organic matter, and releasing CO2. Where I grew up the native prairies had about 4% organic matter. These same areas have maybe 1% now after 60 yrs of farming. Thus the large inputs of nitrogen fertilizer to grow a crop. No-till has helped some but in the drier areas they still fallow every other year, so no live plants and roots to help rebuild OM. My cousin's husband farms our old farm, he's been in no-till for several years and already sees improved rain infiltration, and actually fewer weeds. Hopefully some day they can get off the Roundup train to do this.

[tntmgmt]

07:08 PM on 04/27/2012

(Time for another round of..."What would you do, if you were a law-maker?" (applause))

If I were a law-maker, I would;

Make it illegal to answer a question with a question.

The punishment would be a rapid tazing.

But you would receive a free "Don't Taze Me Bro!" bumper sticker.

Happy weekend everybody.

[GetAbike]

06:24 PM on 04/27/2012

What is left for us to do is adapt our lives, cities, and transportation to the reality of The Warming. Relocation has already begun for people unwilling or unable to re-build after frequent disasters.
We can no longer afford to subsidize people who choose to live in uninhabitable places- and i'm not advocating any particular action towards those people in those places- they will continue to be running out of water, being burned out by huge fires, ruined by hurricane, tornadoe, and floods at incident rates that cannot be compensated for by government, insurance, etc.
Regardless of ones politics (too bad science is now political) every aspect of life is changing- and not for the better.
Embrace the Desert my friends!

[tntmgmt]

07:09 PM on 04/27/2012

Thanks for the "pick me up".

Be well.

[GetAbike]

12:02 PM on 04/29/2012

Takes awhile to get used to the idea that we are in the middle of the beginning of CC and THIS (all around us) is what It looks like.
good luck to you, and all of us..

[The last sane American]

09:26 AM on 04/28/2012

Refreshing to hear a pragmatic approach. "Homo sapiens" has adopted this approach for the past 50,000 years or so.

Shame our government lacks the same understanding.

[GetAbike]

11:57 AM on 04/29/2012

Good point, and thx.

[StephenBP]

04:25 PM on 04/27/2012

Eleven of the twelve hottest years on record have occurred during the 21st century.
If you are a denialiar you will say that the climate is not warming.

Antarctic ice mass is decreasing based on GRACE satellite data.
If you are a denialiar, your will say that the ice in the Antarctic is increasing.

If a scientific study shows evidence that dry places are getting dryer, and wet places are getting wetter, and if you are a denialiar,you will get all giggly and suggest that that is silly and proves that nothing is happening.

To a denialiar like Alux, the word of Rush Limbaugh is more reliable than that of the world's premier scientific organizations.

To a denialiar like Alux, tobacco probably doesn't even cause cancer.

Double down on it Alux. Make our day.

[tntmgmt]

06:41 PM on 04/27/2012

I'm not "doubling down"...I'm just always suspicious when big money is involved.

Are you able to answer me this?;

Why the change from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change"?

(I'm not being sarcastic...genuinely curious)

[Arthur Walsh]

06:57 PM on 04/27/2012

Why the change from anti-abortion to prolife same reason.

[StephenBP]

07:14 PM on 04/27/2012

You know what phenomenon is being discussed.

It was actually Republican adviser Frank Lundt who recommended that Republicans talk about "climate change" instead of "global warming" because it allowed Republicans to address the problem without getting people upset.

BIig money... who has more money than the petroleum and coal industries? I would really like to know... "World Tourism" is listed first, but that is so fragmented that I think fossil fuel tops the list of "big money".

[Chipher]

06:18 AM on 04/28/2012

global temperatures only increased 0.9 degrees since 1950, and are now cooling.
the top 10 greatest storms in human history all happened in **previous centuries**
'dry places are getting drier' is an oxymoron and same with wetter, proving nothing.
Rush Limbaugh is not a climate scientists, I don't understand your gobbledigook.
Tobacco is not a climate change agent, I don't understand your gobbledigook.

[jimboy71]

02:38 PM on 05/02/2012

She watch channel Zero.