ORCA025-GJM189: Lagrangian Particle Trajectories in the Subpolar North Atlantic Ocean

1976 to 2008 particle trajectories from the ORCA025-GJM189 ocean model hindcast, tracking water masses across the OSNAP East section. The dataset was created by researchers at the University of Oxford using the TRACMASS v7.1 tool, with particles advected for up to 7 years. It includes particle locations and properties like potential temperature, salinity, and mixed layer depth recorded at each model-grid cell crossing.

Use Cases

• Analyzing water mass transformation based on particle property changes in potential temperature and salinity.
• Studying the fate of northward-flowing water based on particle termination conditions (southward return, crossing the Greenland-Scotland Ridge).
• Quantifying transport statistics based on particle-initialized transport scaling of up to 2.5 mSv per particle.
• Investigating surface mixed layer processes based on the vertical turbulent mixing scheme applied to particles.

Strengths

• Particle tracking spans a 33-year period from 1976 to 2008.
• Particle properties include potential temperature, salinity, potential density, and local mixed layer depth.
• The 7-year maximum advection time ensures over 99.1% of particles meet a defined termination condition.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

ORCA025-GJM189 ocean sea-ice model hindcast configured during the Drakkar project.

Collection Method

Lagrangian particle tracking experiments conducted at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, using a bespoke version of TRACMASS v7.1.

Time Range

1976 to 2008 (inclusive)

Geography

Eastern subpolar North Atlantic Ocean, specifically the Iceland and Irminger Basins between the OSNAP East section and the Greenland-Scotland Ridge.