In this issue of Weather

Abstract

We begin the new year of Weather with a fascinating examination of oceanic salinity and its measurement from space in ‘Salinity from space’ by M Srokosz and C Banks. Most important in the process of oceanic circulation and analogous to humidity in the atmosphere, creating water masses with particular characteristics, is its salt content. The proportion and absolute amount of salt is variable, but until recently it has not been possible to sense this variation in near‐real time, the most readily available data being the system of Argo floats. This paper shows the value of the recently launched European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellites, which measure the salinity of all the world's oceans, every three days.On p. 8, Alan Hisscott describes the use of a microwave sensor of the lower troposphere on the Isle of Man to explore atmospheric characteristics and weather features in ‘Exploiting wind profiler information’ using seven examples of data from the instrument.Personal weather stations have become very popular in recent years and sharing the information gathered is a useful adjunct to official weather observations. However, systems to allow this data to be seen on the Internet vary, as outlined by Michael Butler in ‘Personal weather stations and sharing weather data via the Internet’ on p. 22.On p. 30, we have the third in our irregular series of Climate Change Shorts, this one asking ‘How is sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic changing?’ by Dan Jones, Emily Shuckburgh and Ed Hawkins.Our final paper this month looks at rainfall in north‐eastern India in ‘Spatial trends in rainfall seasonality: a case study in Jharkhand, India’ by Shonam Sharma and Prasoon Kumar Singh on p. 31.