Maximum salinity values (40e41) were simulated in May and June (Fig. 5e and f) and minimum values (34e35) in January and February (Fig. 5a and b). Although Villalba reports somewhat lower maximum salinities of 37 in June, Cardoso-Mohedano reports values of 43.6 during the period June July 2004, in good agreement with model results. Minimum salinities are highly dependent on the rainfall regime and, although the simulated values are not too dissimilar to observations, they occur at
different moments. Villalba reports a minimum salinity of 31 in August, while Cardoso-Mohedano observes minimum values of 26.8 in September, due to heavy rainfall prior to sampling. In overall we concluded that, in the absence of rainfall, the model reproduced well salinity in UCL but, as expected, this was not the case during the rainy season because forcings cannot reflect the rainfall of any specific year, highly variable in tropical areas.