Distribution Of Chlorofluorocarbon And Its Tracer Study Of Water Masses In The Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea And The Southern South China Sea

Chlorofluorocarbon chemical tracing is a useful tool to study the structure and their interplay of seawater masses. CFC was conventional survey items in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). In this paper, CFC are used as tracers to study the age of water masses and their movement in the Arctic,Bering Sea and the southern South China Sea. Main conclusions are obtained as follows:1. The CFC data from the Arctic Ocean indicated that the CFC in surface water is in undersaturation, The degrees of saturation of CFC-11 in the surface water lies in the range of 70.54% to 84.70%, and that of CCl4 within 76.54% to 91.53%, CFC-113 within 61.68% to 97.98%, probably caused by local ice cover, runoff and the invasion of the Pacific water with low CFC concentration. Contrast to the Arctic, the saturation in the Bering Sea and the southern South Sea is in or near saturation.2. The vertical distributions of CFC confirmed that the water masses in the Canada Basin were stratified. From the CFC section the water masses in the Canada Basin can be divided into surface water, subsurface water, intermediate water and deep water. The age of these water masses from the pCFC-11 are 19 years for subsurface water, 27 years for intermediate water, and 38 years for deep water. The age of the subsurface water mass from the pCCl4 is older than that from the pCFC-11. The significant concentration of CFC at the depth of 2000 m indicated that deep water in the Canada Basin was exchanged and replaced with the open seawater outside.3. The distribution of the CFC, nutrients, DO showed that there are two water masses in the shallower 20m, ACW and ice-melted water. The R section distribution of CFC in the Chukchi Sea confirmed that there is an inflow of Pacific water into the Arctic through the Central Channel, consistent with the results of Weingartiner et al. and Woodgate et al. The CFC and T-S data from the stations of the Bering Sea indicate that the water mass at the station BS09A is the Alaskan Coast Water, and the BS06A, BS07A are in the mixing area of the Alaskan Coast Water, Bering Shelf Water and...