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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Investigating the Relationship between Sea Surface Chlorophyll and Major Features of the South China Sea with Satellite Information
Published on: June 13, 2020
Satellite-based global-ocean mass balance estimates of interannual variability and emerging trends in continental
Tajdarul H Syed1, James S Famiglietti, Don P Chambers
1Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
Abstract:
Freshwater discharge from the continents is a key component of Earth's water cycle that sustains human life and ecosystem health. Surprisingly, owing to a number of socioeconomic and political obstacles, a comprehensive global river discharge observing system does not yet exist. Here we use 13 years (1994-2006) of satellite precipitation, evaporation, and sea level data in an ocean mass balance to estimate freshwater discharge into the global ocean. Results indicate that global freshwater discharge averaged 36,055 km(3)/y for the study period while exhibiting significant interannual variability driven primarily by El Niño Southern Oscillation cycles. The method described here can ultimately be used to estimate long-term global discharge trends as the records of sea level rise and ocean temperature lengthen. For the relatively short 13-year period studied here, global discharge increased by 540 km(3)/y(2), which was largely attributed to an increase of global-ocean evaporation (768 km(3)/y(2)). Sustained growth of these flux rates into long-term trends would provide evidence for increasing intensity of the hydrologic cycle.
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