Rebound of shelf water salinity in the Ross Sea

Abstract

Ross Sea Bottom Water, a major source of Antarctic Bottom Water, has experienced significant freshening in recent decades. Here the authors use 23 years of summer measurements to document temporal variability in the salinity of the Ross Sea High Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW) and found that HSSW salinity decreased between 1995 and 2014 and rebounded sharply after 2014.