Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Sea Surface Salinity Observations from Space
with the SMOS Satellite: A New Means to Monitor
the Marine Branch of the Water Cycle
Nicolas Reul
Severine Fournier
Jaqueline Boutin
Olga Hernandez
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Christophe Maes
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Bertrand Chapron
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Ga¨l Alory
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Yves Quilfen
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Joseph Tenerelli
Simmon Morisset
Yann Kerr
Susanne Mecklenburg
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Steven Delwart
Received: 21 January 2013 / Accepted: 18 June 2013 / Published online: 8 August 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract While it is well known that the ocean is one of the most important component
of the climate system, with a heat capacity 1,100 times greater than the atmosphere, the
ocean is also the primary reservoir for freshwater transport to the atmosphere and largest
component of the global water cycle. Two new satellite sensors, the ESA Soil Moisture and
Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the NASA Aquarius SAC-D missions, are now providing the
first space-borne measurements of the sea surface salinity (SSS). In this paper, we present
examples demonstrating how SMOS-derived SSS data are being used to better characterize
