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  1. Home
  2. Essential Climate Variables
  3. Transient Tracers

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Data Sources

ECV Products and Requirements


Transient Tracers

Transient tracers are man-made chemical compounds released to the atmosphere at known quantities that can be used in the ocean to quantify ventilation, transit time distribution and transport time-scales. Measurement of transient tracers in the subsurface ocean thus provides information on the time-scales since the ocean was ventilated, i.e. in contact with the atmosphere. A combination of these tracers provide the means to constrain the transit time distribution (TTD) of a water-mass that allows inference of concentrations or fates of other transient compounds, such as anthropogenic carbon or nitrous oxide.
  Domain: Ocean
  Subdomain: Biogeochemical
  Scientific Area: Carbon Cycle and other GHGs
  Product:  Interior Ocean CFC-12; Interior Ocean CFC-11; Interior Ocean SF6; Interior Ocean Tritium; Interior Ocean 3He; Interior Ocean 14C; Interior Ocean 39Ar

 

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