Dual-tracer constraints on the inverse Gaussian transit time distribution improve the estimation of water mass ages and their temporal trends in the tropical thermocline

Guo, Haichao; Koeve, Wolfgang; Oschlies, Andreas; He, Yan-Chun; Kemena, Tronje Peer; Gerke, Lennart; Kriest, Iris

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-1167-2025

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-1167-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-1167-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

Research article

|

01 Jul 2025

Research article |

| 01 Jul 2025

Dual-tracer constraints on the inverse Gaussian transit time distribution improve the estimation of water mass ages and their temporal trends in the tropical thermocline

Haichao Guo, Wolfgang Koeve, Andreas Oschlies, Yan-Chun He, Tronje Peer Kemena, Lennart Gerke, and Iris Kriest

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-1167-2025-supplement

Data sets

Dual-tracer constraints on the Inverse-Gaussian Transit-time distribution improve the estimation of watermass ages and their temporal trends in the tropical thermocline Haichao Guo et al. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12085/b5baa5f6-5bda-458f-bfaf-3da3b789a972

Short summary

We evaluated the effectiveness of the inverse Gaussian transit time distribution (IG-TTD) with respect to estimating the mean state and temporal changes of seawater age, defined as the duration since water last had contact with the atmosphere, within the tropical thermocline. Results suggest that the IG-TTD underestimates seawater age. Moreover, the IG-TTD constrained by a single tracer gives spurious trends in water age. Incorporating an additional tracer improves IG-TTD's accuracy for estimating temporal change of seawater age.