Tracing dense shelf water in the Sea of Okhotsk with an ocean general circulation model

Abstract

A lot of sedimentary particles are known to be mixed into dense shelf water (DSW) produced in the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk as a result of brine rejection during sea ice formation. To investigate the behavior and distribution of materials in DSW, tracer experiments with an ice-ocean coupled model have been conducted. It was shown that a tracer injected in winter over the northwestern shelf flows on the shelf until early summer with the concentration higher near the bottom. Then, it goes down along the slope to the intermediate layer along the east coast of Sakhalin; the core of tracer is settled around a depth of 400 m. These features are consistent with observations. The experiment in which tidal mixing is absent along the Kuril Islands shows a shallower core of the tracer at a depth of about 200 m owing to the density decrease of DSW.