Current Status and Prospects Regarding Radiocarbon Studies in the East Sea

Together with the development of measurement techniques, radiocarbon (¹⁴C) has been increasingly used as a key tool to investigate carbon cycling and associated biogeochemistry in the ocean. In this paper, the current status of radiocarbon studies in the East Sea (Japan Sea) is reviewed. Previously, spatiotemporal distribution and change of the water masses in the East Sea from 1979 to 1999 were investigated by using the¹⁴C in the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Researches on sinking particulate organic carbon (POC) revealed that POC in the deep ocean has more complex and heterogeneous origins than we expected. In particular, since 2011, Korean researchers have been collecting sinking particle samples for more than 10 years, so it is expected that¹⁴C of POC will provide important information to understand carbon cycling in relation to climate change. Although the quantity of¹⁴C data published in the East Sea is still limited, the importance and the future direction of using¹⁴C to understand the biogeochemical mechanisms of carbon cycling and its role as a carbon reservoir in the East Sea are detailed herein.