Hsun-Ying Kao (Earth & Space Research, United States); Kathleen Dohan (Earth & Space Research, United States)

The North Atlantic subtropical salinity maximum was the focus of the SPURS field campaign in 2012-2013 to understand the mechanisms that maintain the regional high surface salinities and to understand the surface freshwater flux budget. A priori, it was well known that the region is dominated by climatologically net positive evaporation minus precipitation (E-P>0). Preliminary calculations also indicated that surface current advection alone did not complete the balance. The eddy kinetic energy has a seasonal cycle that is highly correlated with the residual between the steady state transport and the freshwater flux, indicating the contribution of upper-ocean eddy processes in maintaining the salt balance. In this study we combine OSCAR currents [derived from SSH and vector winds], with Aquarius satellite salinity and SPURS in situ salinity measurements, to make preliminary updated analyses.