Boron isotopes in Fiji corals and precise ocean acidification reconstruction

• Main Authors: Douville, E., Juillet-Leclerc, A., Cabioch, G., Louvat, P., Gaillardet, J., Gehlen, M., Bopp, L., Paterne, M.
• Other Authors: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Université de La Réunion (UR)-Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPG Paris)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2009
• Subjects: 1630 GLOBAL CHANGE / Impacts of global change; 4806 OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL / Carbon cycling; 4916 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Corals; 9355 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION / Pacific Ocean; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04113499

International audience Within the framework of EPOCA (European Project on OCean Acidification ) and the French INSU project PHARE, we are adapting the boron isotope technique to ancient corals with the scope to reconstruct “past” ocean pH changes. In this study, we applied the technique to surface seawater pH reconstructions based on tropical 20th century corals from Fiji. Models estimated a pH drop close to 0.07 pH units in the South Western Equatorial Pacific since the onset of the industrial era (Sabine et al., 2004). To reconstruct such a change in pH, the isotopic composition of boron (δ11B) in coral material has to be determined with a precision better than ±0.2‰. This analytical criteria was meet on a Multi-Collector ICPMS Neptune. We selected a Porites coral for the reconstruction of the time dependent evolution of pH. Our results show a progressive decrease of seawater pH between 1900 and 2000 of 0.08 +/- 0.02 pH units. This decrease in pH agrees with projections of surface ocean pH for the Fiji area obtained with the biogeochemical ocean circulation model NEMO-PISCES. Our results further reveal that seawater pH changes in the Fiji area are strongly affected by regional processes such as the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) tightly linked the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This last observation highlights the potential of the δ11B-pH technique for studying past changes of ocean dynamics. Hönisch, B., Hemming, N. G., Grottoli, A. G., Amat, A., Hanson, G. N. & Bijma, J. (2004). Assessing scleractinian corals as recoders for paleo-pH: Empirical calibration and vital effects. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 68(18), 3675-3685. Sabine, C. L., Feely, R. A., Gruber, N., Key, R. M., Lee, K., Bullister, J. L., Wanninkhof, R., Wong, C. S., Wallace, D. W. R., Tilbrook, B., Millero, F. J., Peng, T. H., Kozyr, A., Ono, T. & Rios, A. F. (2004). The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2. Science, 305, 367-371.