Still more highly questionable stuff from climate modellers

Climate change making seas more salty, research finds | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The team wanted to see whether manmade climate change could be blamed for changes in salinity measured in the Atlantic. In 2003, experts reported that the north Atlantic waters were freshening, with salt levels decreasing – a mild version of the scenario depicted in the Hollywood film The Day After Tomorrow where massive amounts of fresh water shut down warm ocean currents and cause temperatures to plunge.

Meanwhile, further south towards the tropics, Atlantic waters have been getting saltier – about 0.5% more since the 1960s.

Using state-of-the-art climate models, the scientists simulated events over both parts of the ocean with and without increased levels of greenhouse gases. They found that the freshening of the north Atlantic could be explained by natural variations, a conclusion supported by a recent recovery of the salt levels there.

But for the mid Atlantic, the models showed that only human-driven global warming could explain the increase in saltiness – the first time such an explicit link has been made between climate change and salinity. The results will appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.