Influence of Nonseasonal River Discharge on Sea Surface Salinity and Height

River discharge influences ocean dynamics and biogeochemistry. Due to the lack of a systematic, up-to-date global measurement network for river discharge, models typically use seasonal climatology as forcing. This compromises simulated nonseasonal variation (the deviation from climatology) near plumes undermines their usefulness interdisciplinary research. Recently, reanalysis-based daily varying data set was developed, providing first opportunity quantify effects on models. Here we this force model 1992–2017 period. We contrast experiment with another (with identical atmospheric forcings) forced by same isolate effects, focusing sea surface salinity (SSS) height (SSH). Near major mouths, causes standard deviations in SSS (SSH) 1.3–3 practical unit (1–2.7 cm). The inclusion results notable improvement against satellite most tropical-to-midlatitude mouths minor SSH or in-situ some mouths. changes associated can be explained halosteric estimated accurately through changes. A recent theory predicting impact is found perform reasonably well overall but underestimates around has limited skill when applied rivers equator Arctic Ocean.