Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) is an increasingly used Essential Ocean and Climate Variable. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS), Aquarius, and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite missions all provide SSS measurements, with very different instrumental features leading to specific measurement characteristics. The Climate Change Initiative Salinity project (CCI + SSS) aims to produce a SSS Climate Data Record (CDR) that addresses well‐established user needs based on those satellite measurements. To generate a homogeneous CDR, instrumental differences are carefully adjusted based on in‐depth analysis of the measurements themselves, together with some limited use of independent reference data. An optimal interpolation in the time domain without temporal relaxation to reference data or spatial smoothing is applied. This allows preserving the original datasets variability. SSS CCI fields are well suited for monitoring weekly to interannual signals, at spatial scales ranging from 50 km to the basin scale. They display large year‐to‐year seasonal variations over the 2010–2019 decade, sometimes by more than ±0.4 over large regions. The robust standard deviation of the monthly CCI SSS minus in situ Argo salinities is 0.15 globally, while it is at least 0.20 with individual satellite SSS fields. r² is 0.97, similar or better than with original datasets. The correlation with independent ship thermosalinographs SSS further highlights the CCI data set excellent performance, especially near land areas. During the SMOS‐Aquarius period, when the representativity uncertainties are the largest, r² is 0.84 with CCI while it is 0.48 with the Aquarius original data set. SSS CCI data are freely available and will be updated and extended as more satellite data become available.

Special section Modeling Transport (Energy) Demand and Policies.-- 14 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, 6 appendixA global alternative mix to fossil fuels is proposed, based on proven renewable energy technologies that do not use scarce materials. The mix consists of a combination of onshore and offshore wind turbines, concentrating solar power stations, hydroelectricity and wave power devices attached to the offshore turbines. Solar photovoltaic power could contribute to the mix if its dependence on scarce materials is solved. The most adequate deployment areas for the power stations are studied, as well as the required space. Material requirements are studied for the generation, power transport and for some future transport systems. The order of magnitude of copper, aluminium, neodymium, lithium, nickel, zinc and platinum that may be required for the proposed solution is obtained and compared with available reserves. Overall, the proposed global alternative to fossil fuels seems technically feasible. However, lithium, nickel and platinum could become limiting materials for future vehicles fleet if no global recycling systems were implemented and rechargeable zinc-air batteries would not be developed; 60% of the current copper reserves would have to be employed in the implementation of the proposed solution. Altogether, they may become a long-term physical constraint, preventing the continuation of the usual exponential growth of energy consumption. © 2011 Elsevier LtdPeer Reviewe

Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS), launched on 2 November 2009, is the first satellite mission addressing sea surface salinity (SSS) measurement from space. Its unique payload is the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS), a new two-dimensional interferometer designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and operating at the L-band frequency. This article presents a summary of SSS retrieval from SMOS observations and shows initial results obtained one year after launch. These results are encouraging, but also indicate that further improvements at various data processing levels are needed and hence are currently under investigation.

This paper aims to present and assess the quality of seven years (2011–2017) of 25 km nine-day Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) objectively analyzed maps in the Arctic and sub-Arctic oceans ( ${50}^{\circ }$ N– ${90}^{\circ }$ N). The SMOS SSS maps presented in this work are an improved version of the preliminary three-year dataset generated and freely distributed by the Barcelona Expert Center. In this new version, a time-dependent bias correction has been applied to mitigate the seasonal bias that affected the previous SSS maps. An extensive database of in situ data (Argo floats and thermosalinograph measurements) has been used for assessing the accuracy of this product. The standard deviation of the difference between the new SMOS SSS maps and Argo SSS ranges from 0.25 and 0.35. The major features of the inter-annual SSS variations observed by the thermosalinographs are also captured by the SMOS SSS maps. However, the validation in some regions of the Arctic Ocean has not been feasible because of the lack of in situ data. In those regions, qualitative comparisons with SSS provided by models and the remotely sensed SSS provided by Aquarius and SMAP have been performed. Despite the differences between SMOS and SMAP, both datasets show consistent SSS variations with respect to the model and the river discharge in situ data, but present a larger dynamic range than that of the model. This result suggests that, in those regions, the use of the remotely sensed SSS may help to improve the models.