Illlustration depicting Air-sea exchange mechanisms

Imagine you turn on the tap in the morning and water pummels out and spills over your sink. Later you go out to your garden, but water trickles feebly out of the hose. The water pump in your house is definitely not working the way it used to. Scientists say something like that is probably happening in our planetary home. Climate change is gunning the motor of Earths water pump, driving more rainfall to already wet areas and less to drier regions. To understand how things will change, it would help if we could get a handle on how the motor is driving more moisture from the ocean to the atmosphere. But figuring out how and why water molecules move between air and ocean is a formidable challenge for scientists. (Illustration by Amy Caracappa-Qubeck, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)