Rapid shifts in circulation and biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean during deglacial carbon cycle events

Support for this work comes from the European Research Council, the Natural Environmental Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ocean Exploration Trust, the Royal Society Newton Mobility Grant in conjunction with the Nation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science Advances
Main Authors: Li, Tao, Robinson, Laura F., Chen, Tianyu, Wang, Xingchen T., Burke, Andrea, Rae, James W. B., Pegrum-Haram, Albertine, Knowles, Timothy D. J., Li, Gaojun, Chen, Jun, Ng, Hong Chin, Prokopenko, Maria, Rowland, George, Samperiz, Ana, Stewart, Joseph A., Southon, John, Spooner, Peter T.
Other Authors: NERC, University of St Andrews.School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews.St Andrews Isotope Geochemistry
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
GC Oceanography
NDAS
GC
Southern Ocean
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10023/20828
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb3807
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Summary:Support for this work comes from the European Research Council, the Natural Environmental Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ocean Exploration Trust, the Royal Society Newton Mobility Grant in conjunction with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41711530222), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41991325, 41822603, and 91955201), the China Scholarship Council, and the program A for outstanding PhD candidate of Nanjing University. Computational resources for the SOSE are provided by NSF XSEDE resource grant OCE130007. The Southern Ocean plays a crucial role in regulating atmospheric CO2 on centennial to millennial time scales. However, observations of sufficient resolution to explore this have been lacking. Here, we report high-resolution, multiproxy records based on precisely dated deep-sea corals from the Southern Ocean. Paired deep (∆14C and δ11B) and surface (δ15N) proxy data point to enhanced upwelling coupled with reduced efficiency of the biological pump at 14.6 and 11.7 thousand years (ka) ago, which would have facilitated rapid carbon release to the atmosphere. Transient periods of unusually well-ventilated waters in the deep Southern Ocean occurred at 16.3 and 12.8 ka ago. Contemporaneous atmospheric carbon records indicate that these Southern Ocean ventilation events are also important in releasing respired carbon from the deep ocean to the atmosphere. Our results thus highlight two distinct modes of Southern Ocean circulation and biogeochemistry associated with centennial-scale atmospheric CO2 jumps during the last deglaciation. Peer reviewed

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