Tracers of near-surface, halocline and deep waters in the Arctic ocean: Implications for circulation

Abstract

Chemical tracers, natural and antropogenic, together with the traditional measurements of salinity and temperature have been used with considerable success to begin to piece together a picture of the origin and circulation patterns of the waters in the Arctic Ocean Basins. Until recently, most such measurements in the central Arctic Ocean were carried out from ice camps that provided a few isolated data sets. In 1987, the German icebreaker, F.S. Polarstern, completed the first oceanographic section across a major Arctic Ocean Basin. Tracer data collected on this expedition, together with data from ice camps and expeditions to peripheral seas, have shown that the large continental shelves of the Arctic Ocean have a considerable influence on the distribution of chemicals in Arctic Ocean waters and these chemicals used as tracers can disclose the origin and circulation of Arctic Ocean water masses. This paper is intended as a review and synthesis of published and some previously unpublished data to provide as complete a picture as possible of the large-scale circulation of the Arctic Ocean.