Even though evaporation occurs throughout the ocean, the SPURS study site is a place where it is particularly strong. It's sort of the "headwaters" of the atmospheric water cycle. It's the place where the highest salinities in the open ocean are found - and they are much higher than previously anticipated. Focusing on this area will lead to a better understanding of how the processes at work here apply more generally to the same processes happening around the globe.

Featured Video: The North Atlantic's Ocean Desert

Resources

• Ocean Salinity Viewed from Sea and Space
  [NASA Earth Observatory]
  NASA Program Scientist Eric Lindstrom describes why scientists want to spend six weeks at sea measuring ocean saltiness
• Salinity Data and Tools
  [NASA Aquarius]
  Find the data set that most closely corresponds to sea surface salinity patterns
• Geographic Variation in Salinity
  [NASA Aquarius]
  Dr. Susan Lozier, Duke University, describes an ocean desert