The penetration of tritium and generation of 3He in the North Atlantic
Abstract
Based on large scale surveys such as GEOSECS, TTO, WOCE and CLIVAR, as well as smaller cruises, we now have observations that cover more nearly 35 years of the penetration of bomb-produced tritium and its daughter 3He in the North Atlantic Ocean. This data set offers us the opportunity to characterize the decade time-scale ventilation and circulation of the North Atlantic basin, and some insights into climate change and variability. Perhaps the most important aspect of this tracer pair is that the tritiugenic 3He is a unique transient tracer in that it highlights the return pathways of the ventilation process. This permits us to use it to constrain large scale fluxes of remineralized thermocline nutrients to the surface ocean, thus constraining basin scale new production. We describe the patterns of evolving tritium and 3He distributions within the subtropical North Atlantic and relate these to large scale circulation and ventilation. In addition, the evolving inventories of these tracers provide useful insights into the character of the meridional overturning circulation.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFMOS33C..07L
- Keywords:
-
- 1635 Oceans (1616;
- 3305;
- 4215;
- 4513);
- 4283 Water masses;
- 4513 Decadal ocean variability (1616;
- 1635;
- 3305;
- 4215);
- 4808 Chemical tracers;
- 4860 Radioactivity and radioisotopes