NASA Salinity: Highlights

Explore ocean motion at the "middle" scale

These swirling loops of water transport heat and salinity and provide hot spots for production. »

Exploring ties between wind, ocean layers and dissolved salt in our seas

Salt-wind linkages are powerful forces on our planet shaping ocean circulation, driving the global water cycle, and fueling life »

Using salinity to find ocean organisms

For some species, salinity is an environmental factor that impacts where they live »

A continual cycle of evaporation and rain

The ocean plays a critical role in the global water cycle and this is reflected in the salinity of ocean water »

The annual rise and fall of salinity

Tracing the ocean's seasonal patterns of salinity and the global water cycle »

Fronts are the hot spots of marine life

Computer algorithms can detect fronts from satellite data for better fisheries management »

Earth's ocean and atmosphere interact in countless ways

Ocean-atmosphere oscillations and dipoles are erratic in strength, timing, and notoriously difficult to predict. »

Salinity is a "key ingredient" for high-latitude ocean ecological communities

Climate is changing. And nowhere is it more evident than near Earth's poles. »

Water evaporating from the ocean sustains precipitation on land

Exploring the connection between salinity, ocean-to-land moisture transport, and soil moisture. »

Total alkalinity (TA) is needed to assess ocean acidification

Key parameters needed to assess ocean acidification - including TA - have dependencies on salinity. »

How these storms may intensify

New research shows that low sea surface salinity caused by the outflow of major rivers can have a considerable impact on how storms intensify »

Connecting land-based events to the ocean

See how Aquarius and SMAP salinity data have been used to study marginal seas and river plumes emanating from five continents »