Physical oceanography and CFC measured on water bottle samples during METEOR cruise M53/3 ...

• Main Authors: Steinfeldt, Reiner, Rhein, Monika
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2017
• Subjects: Event label; Latitude of event; Longitude of event; Elevation of event; DEPTH, water; Pressure, water; Temperature, water; Salinity; Oxygen; Freon-11 trichorofluoromethane; Freon-12 dichlorodifluoromethane; Temperature, water, potential; Bottle number; CTD/Rosette; CTD; Calculated; M53/3; Meteor 1986; Denmark Strait; Labrador Sea; NADW; North Atlantic Deep Water; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.872010; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.872010

Repeated observations of CFC-11 and CFC-12 in the western tropical Atlantic over the period from 1990 to 2002 are used to fit parameters of the age spectra for several North Atlantic Deep Water components: the upper Labrador Sea water (ULSW), the Labrador Sea water (LSW), and the lower North Atlantic Deep Water (LNADW). The most robust results are the mean spreading velocities, u, from the formation region in the Labrador Sea and the Denmark Strait, of 1.5 ± 0.3 cm/s for the two LSW water masses and 2.0 ± 0.2 cm/s for LNADW, respectively. These values are equivalent to an age of about 15–22 years for all three components at 16°N and 21–31 years at the equator at 35°W. The results are compatible with simpler tracer methods, as CFC ratios or “effective” ages. The fractions, f, of the “young” component (i.e., the fraction of the water mass ventilated in the last 50 years), turned out to be quite small, ranging from 25% to less than 5%. The downstream decrease of f indicates mixing of young NADW with CFC-poor ... : # = mean ...