Abstract
This chapter describes the WOCE data set and demonstrates the type of results that can be expected from its interpretation on the basis of selected examples. These examples include (1) the ventilation of the upper waters in the Pacific Ocean, (2) the penetration of near-surface signals into the deep ocean via the deep western boundary current in the Atlantic, (3) the renewal of Antarctic intermediate water, (4) and the deep water formation around Antarctica. The preliminary results presented demonstrate the potential of the WOCE tracer data set for obtaining insights into the oceanic circulation that were not possible on the basis of pre-WOCE data sets. The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) tracer survey provides the most extensive, global, and high-quality data sets for a variety of transient and steady-state tracers. This survey offers the possibility to extract a wealth of new results on the physical climate system and biogeochemical processes. The use of tracer inventories provides an independent means of estimating water mass formation rates. In contrast to current meter arrays or hydrographic sections across strong boundary flows, tracer inventories represent the integrated effects of water mass formation from all sources on decadal time scales, and the results are less susceptible to shorter-term fluctuations on the mean water mass formation rate.