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Water mass ages based on GLODAPv2 data product (NCEI Accession 0226793)

Published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Metadata Last Checked: January 26, 2026 | Last Modified: 2021-03-18T00:00:00.000+00:00
This dataset contain ventilation ages calculated using the transit time distribution (TTD) method (e.g., Waugh et al., 2004) on the GLODAPv2 data synthesis product (Olsen et al., 2016). Ventilation age is defined as the time elapsed since a water parcel was last in contact with the atmosphere. Our calculated ages are estimated from measured concentrations of the transient tracers sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) CFC-11 and CFC-12. For these TTD calculations we have assumed full (100%) saturation of the transient tracers when subducted, which will generate a bias toward older ages in especially dense water formation regions since it is known that the saturation there is frequently lower than 100%. We assume that the solution to the Greens function is an Inverse Gaussian (IG) function. Furthermore, we have assumed a balance between advection and mixing, i.e., unity ratio between the width and the mean age of the TTDs. This assumption is typically adopted in the global ocean (e.g., Waugh et al., 2006), although there is regional variability (e.g., Stöven and Tanhua, 2014; Rajasakaren et al., 2019). Thus, some care should be taken when utilising the calculated ages in certain regions. The main reason for the published dataset is to give a user-friendly product that can be applied in ocean studies where ventilation ages are of interest, both to give an appreciation of typical ages and gradients in the ocean, and to be adopted in studies calculating biogeochemical rates. A recent example of the latter is the updated calcium carbonate dissolution study by Sulpis et al. (2021), which used these data. All included data are listed and specified in the dataset description below, and most of them are identical to the values found in GLODAPv2 (Key et al., 2015; Olsen et al., 2016). The novel addition in this dataset are the ventilation ages. The files contain both the TTD-based mean ages that are calculated as described above, and, calculated tracer ages, which assumes no mixing and are simply derived by matching the observed tracer concentration to the atmospheric history. For the atmospheric history we used (Walker et al. (2000) and Bullister (2015)), updated to 2016 by extrapolating with the same atmospheric evolution rate as the year before. The dataset consists of files covering four regions, following the GLODAPv2 data synthesis product: the Arctic Mediterranean (ARC), The Atlantic Ocean (ATL), the Indian Ocean (IND), and the Pacific Ocean (PAC). The data are provided both in comma separated (.csv) format and in Matlab® format (.mat).

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0226793 BAROMETRIC PRESSURE CHLOROFLUOROCARBON-11 (CFC-11) CHLOROFLUOROCARBON-12 (CFC-12) Potential temperature (theta) SALINITY sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) WATER TEMPERATURE CTD Niskin bottle titrator chemical discrete sample physical profile VARIOUS CHARTERED VESSELS Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research GLOBAL OCEAN DATA ANALYSIS PROJECT (GLODAP) The Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP) U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Research Program (U.S. CLIVAR) World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Arctic Ocean Indian Ocean North Atlantic Ocean North Pacific Ocean South Atlantic Ocean South Pacific Ocean Southern Ocean oceanography BJERKNES > Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research CARBOGIB2005 IcelandSea IrmingerSea OMEX1NS OMEX2 06AQ19840719 06AQ19860627 06AQ19870704 06AQ19890906 06AQ19901117 06AQ19920521 06AQ19920929 06AQ19921203 06AQ19930806 06AQ19950707 06AQ19960317 06AQ19960712 06AQ19980328 06AQ20021124 06AQ20050122 06AQ20060825 06AQ20070728 06AQ20071128 06AQ20080210 06AQ20101128 06BE20001128 06BE20030525 06GA19960613 06GA20000506 06MM20060523 06MM20090714 06MT19810328 06MT19900123 06MT19901004 06MT19910210 06MT19910902 06MT19920509 06MT19920701 06MT19921227 06MT19940219 06MT19940329 06MT19941012 06MT19941115 06MT19960613 06MT19960910 06MT19970107 06MT19970515 06MT19970611 06MT19970707 06MT19970815 06MT19990610 06MT19990711 06MT19990813 06MT20010507 06MT20010620 06MT20010717 06MT20011018 06MT20020607 06MT20021013 06MT20030626 06MT20030723 06MT20030831 06MT20040311 06MT20040710 06MT20050813 06MT20060606 06MT20060712 06MT20091026 06MT20110405 09AR19910925 09AR19930404 09AR19941213 09AR19960822 09AR19980228 09AR20011029 09AR20030103 09AR20041223 09AR20060102 09AR20071216 09AR20080322 09AR20110104 09AR20120105 09FA19930624 09FA19941112 09FA19950913 09FA19960507 09FA20000926 09FA20010524 09SS20090203 11BG20060425 11BG20060531 11BG20070510 11BG20080507 189119870330 18AW19860910 18DD19851029 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77DN20050819 77YM19800811 90AQ19940706 90AV20041104 90BM19930830 90CI19990827 90CI20000602 90CT19930911 90JS20080815 90KD19920214 90MS19811009 ZZIC2005SWYD CLIVAR > Climate Variability GLODAP > Global Ocean Data Analysis Project WOCE > World Ocean Circulation Experiment Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data System (OCADS) Project CLIVAR GO-SHIP WOCE other Repeat Sections EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > POTENTIAL TEMPERATURE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > WATER TEMPERATURE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SALINITY/DENSITY > SALINITY Discrete measurement Cruise Latitude Longitude Pressure Year, Month, Day ageF11 ageF12 ageSF6 cfc11 cfc12 mageF11 mageF12 mageSF6 pcfc11 pcfc12 psf6 salinity sf6 temperature theta CTD > Conductivity, Temperature, Depth NISKIN BOTTLES OCEAN > ARCTIC OCEAN OCEAN > ATLANTIC OCEAN > NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN OCEAN > ATLANTIC OCEAN > SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN OCEAN > INDIAN OCEAN OCEAN > PACIFIC OCEAN > NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN OCEAN > PACIFIC OCEAN > SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN OCEAN > SOUTHERN OCEAN Arctic Ocean Atlantic Ocean Indian Ocean Pacific Ocean

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