Oceanic Freshwater Fluxes in the Climate System

Atmospheric transports of freshwater, within and between ocean basins and between oceans and continents, are integrated parts of the climate system of the earth of decisive importance for the distribution of salinity in the oceans. The latter enforces restrictions on the oceans regarding, for instance, possible locations of areas where deepwater and sea ice may be formed. Such locations strongly influence the regional climate and are of great importance for the appearance of the large-scale thermohaline circulation of the oceans. However, the long-term oceanic response to atmospheric freshwater forcing is complicated because it also involves thermally and wind forced circulation as well as astronomically forced diapycnal mixing and modification by basin topography. The main purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss major features of the oceanic response to present day’s systematic atmospheric transports of freshwater.