Ocean Circulation and Geochemistry
-- Ocean Circulation and Geochemistry --
A CTD/Hydrographic Section across the Arctic Ocean
James Swift
The objectives of our water column work were:
To study the origin and circulation of the waters of the
Arctic Ocean and nearby seas;
To determine the surface-to-bottom distributions and
sources of the physical and chemical characteristics;
To study the location, origin and structure of subsurface
boundary currents; and
To contribute to studies of the response of the regimes to
environmental forcing.
The water column program provided the trans-Arctic section a
depth) and "small-volume" hydrographic measurements meet-
ing World Ocean Circulation Experiment parameter and quality
recommendations.
The Louis S. St-Laurent is well equipped for high-latitude
CTD/rosette work. On the starboard side of the vessel there is a
small CTD/computer van and a large double-van rosette room.
The rosette was launched through a large A-frame. The Louis S. St-Laurent is also
The CTD/rosette
being lowered from
outfitted with a full suite of laboratories for the analytical equipment.
the Louis S.
We collected water column measurements at 35 hydrographic stations along
St-Laurent.
the AOS-94 route: beginning on the Chukchi shelf, then across the Chukchi
Abyssal Plain and Makarov Basin, then down the Eurasian side of the Lomonosov
Ridge to the North Pole. Water column work was cut short at that point
because the Polar Sea developed mechanical problems. Both ships exited the Arc-
tic together through Fram Strait, occupying an additional four stations en route.
The U.S./Canadian water column measurement team on the Louis S.
St-Laurent carried out full-depth CTD profiling and 36-level rosette sam-
pling. Water samples were collected for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), helium,
oxygen, CO2 system components, AMS 14C, tritium, 18O, nutrients, salinity,
pling was carried out at 39 stations and was remarkably trouble free.
We examined sections of potential temperature, salinity and density anom-
alies referred to 0 and 2000 db from the CTD data for our section from the
James Swift is from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, U.S.A.
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