The origin of carbonate mud and implications for global climate

Carbonate mud represents one of the most important geochemical archives for reconstructing ancient climatic, environmental, and evolutionary change from the rock record. Mud also represents a major sink in the global carbon cycle. Yet, there remains no consensus about how and where carbonate mud is formed. Here, we present stable isotope and trace-element data from carbonate constituents in the Bahamas, including ooids, corals, foraminifera, and algae. We use geochemical fingerprinting to demonstrate that carbonate mud cannot be sourced from the abrasion and mixture of any combination of these macroscopic grains. Instead, an inverse Bayesian mixing model requires the presence of an additional aragonite source. We posit that this source represents a direct seawater precipitate. We use geological and geochemical data to show that "whitings" are unlikely to be the dominant source of this precipitate and, instead, present a model for mud precipitation on the bank margins that can explain the geographical distribution, clumped-isotope thermometry, and stable isotope signature of carbonate mud. Next, we address the enigma of why mud and ooids are so abundant in the Bahamas, yet so rare in the rest of the world: Mediterranean outflow feeds the Bahamas with the most alkaline waters in the modern ocean (>99.7th-percentile). Such high alkalinity appears to be a prerequisite for the nonskeletal carbonate factory because, when Mediterranean outflow was reduced in the Miocene, Bahamian carbonate export ceased for 3-million-years. Finally, we show how shutting off and turning on the shallow carbonate factory can send ripples through the global climate system.

Glacial carbon cycle changes by Southern Ocean processes with sedimentary amplification

Recent paleo reconstructions suggest that increased carbon storage in the Southern Ocean during glacial periods contributed to low glacial atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (pCO₂). However, quantifying its contribution in three-dimensional ocean general circulation models (OGCMs) has proven challenging. Here, we show that OGCM simulation with sedimentary process considering enhanced Southern Ocean salinity stratification and iron fertilization from glaciogenic dust during glacial periods improves model-data agreement of glacial deep water with isotopically light carbon, low oxygen, and old radiocarbon ages. The glacial simulation shows a 77-ppm reduction of atmospheric pCO₂, which closely matches the paleo record. The Southern Ocean salinity stratification and the iron fertilization from glaciogenic dust amplified the carbonate sedimentary feedback, which caused most of the increased carbon storage in the deep ocean and played an important role in pCO₂ reduction. The model-data agreement of Southern Ocean properties is crucial for simulating glacial changes in the ocean carbon cycle.

The Dissolution Rate of CaCO3 in the Ocean

The dissolution of CaCO₃ minerals in the ocean is a fundamental part of the marine alkalinity and carbon cycles. While there have been decades of work aimed at deriving the relationship between dissolution rate and mineral saturation state (a so-called rate law), no real consensus has been reached. There are disagreements between laboratory- and field-based studies and differences in rates for inorganic and biogenic materials. Rates based on measurements on suspended particles do not always agree with rates inferred from measurements made near the sediment-water interface of the actual ocean. By contrast, the freshwater dissolution rate of calcite has been well described by bulk rate measurements from a number of different laboratories, fit by basic kinetic theory, and well studied by atomic force microscopy and vertical scanning interferometry to document the processes at the atomic scale. In this review, we try to better unify our understanding of carbonate dissolution in the ocean via a relatively new, highly sensitive method we have developed combined with a theoretical framework guided by the success of the freshwater studies. We show that empirical curve fits of seawater data as a function of saturation state do not agree, largely because the curvature is itself a function of the thermodynamics. Instead, we show that models that consider both surface energetic theory and the complicated speciation of seawater and calcite surfaces in seawater are able to explain most of the most recent data.This new framework can also explain features of the historical data that have not been previously explained. The existence of a kink in the relationship between rate and saturation state, reflecting a change in dissolution mechanism, may be playing an important role in accelerating CaCO₃ dissolution in key sedimentary environments.

Early Cenozoic Decoupling of Climate and Carbonate Compensation Depth Trends

Our understanding of the long-term evolution of the Earth system is based on the assumption that terrestrial weathering rates should respond to, and hence help regulate, atmospheric CO2 and climate. Increased terrestrial weathering requires increased carbonate accumulation in marine sediments, which in turn is expected to result in a long-term deepening of the carbonate compensation depth (CCD). Here, we critically assess this long-term relationship between climate and carbon cycling. We generate a record of marine deep-sea carbonate abundance from selected late Paleocene through early Eocene time slices to reconstruct the position of the CCD. Although our data set allows for a modest CCD deepening, we find no statistically significant change in the CCD despite >3 °C global warming, highlighting the need for additional deep-sea constraints on carbonate accumulation. Using an Earth system model, we show that the impact of warming and increased weathering on the CCD can be obscured by the opposing influences of ocean circulation patterns and sedimentary respiration of organic matter. From our data synthesis and modeling, we suggest that observations of warming, declining δ13C and a relatively stable CCD can be broadly reproduced by mid-Paleogene increases in volcanic CO2 outgassing and weathering. However, remaining data-model discrepancies hint at missing processes in our model, most likely involving the preservation and burial of organic carbon. Our finding of a decoupling between the CCD and global marine carbonate burial rates means that considerable care is needed in attempting to use the CCD to directly gauge global carbonate burial rates and hence weathering rates.

Causes of ice age intensification across the Mid-Pleistocene Transition

Conflicting sets of hypotheses highlight either the role of ice sheets or atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) in causing the increase in duration and severity of ice age cycles ∼1 Mya during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). We document early MPT CO₂ cycles that were smaller than during recent ice age cycles. Using model simulations, we attribute this to post-MPT increase in glacial-stage dustiness and its effect on Southern Ocean productivity. Detailed analysis reveals the importance of CO₂ climate forcing as a powerful positive feedback that magnified MPT climate change originally triggered by a change in ice sheet dynamics. These findings offer insights into the close coupling of climate, oceans, and ice sheets within the Earth System.

During the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT; 1,200–800 kya), Earth’s orbitally paced ice age cycles intensified, lengthened from ∼40,000 (∼40 ky) to ∼100 ky, and became distinctly asymmetrical. Testing hypotheses that implicate changing atmospheric CO₂ levels as a driver of the MPT has proven difficult with available observations. Here, we use orbitally resolved, boron isotope CO₂ data to show that the glacial to interglacial CO₂ difference increased from ∼43 to ∼75 μatm across the MPT, mainly because of lower glacial CO₂ levels. Through carbon cycle modeling, we attribute this decline primarily to the initiation of substantive dust-borne iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean during peak glacial stages. We also observe a twofold steepening of the relationship between sea level and CO₂-related climate forcing that is suggestive of a change in the dynamics that govern ice sheet stability, such as that expected from the removal of subglacial regolith or interhemispheric ice sheet phase-locking. We argue that neither ice sheet dynamics nor CO₂ change in isolation can explain the MPT. Instead, we infer that the MPT was initiated by a change in ice sheet dynamics and that longer and deeper post-MPT ice ages were sustained by carbon cycle feedbacks related to dust fertilization of the Southern Ocean as a consequence of larger ice sheets.

Simulated effect of calcification feedback on atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification

Ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 reduces pH and saturation state of calcium carbonate materials of seawater, which could reduce the calcification rate of some marine organisms, triggering a negative feedback on the growth of atmospheric CO2. We quantify the effect of this CO2-calcification feedback by conducting a series of Earth system model simulations that incorporate different parameterization schemes describing the dependence of calcification rate on saturation state of CaCO3. In a scenario with SRES A2 CO2 emission until 2100 and zero emission afterwards, by year 3500, in the simulation without CO2-calcification feedback, model projects an accumulated ocean CO2 uptake of 1462 PgC, atmospheric CO2 of 612 ppm, and surface pH of 7.9. Inclusion of CO2-calcification feedback increases ocean CO2 uptake by 9 to 285 PgC, reduces atmospheric CO2 by 4 to 70 ppm, and mitigates the reduction in surface pH by 0.003 to 0.06, depending on the form of parameterization scheme used. It is also found that the effect of CO2-calcification feedback on ocean carbon uptake is comparable and could be much larger than the effect from CO2-induced warming. Our results highlight the potentially important role CO2-calcification feedback plays in ocean carbon cycle and projections of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

A Cenozoic record of the equatorial Pacific carbonate compensation depth

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and climate are regulated on geological timescales by the balance between carbon input from volcanic and metamorphic outgassing and its removal by weathering feedbacks; these feedbacks involve the erosion of silicate rocks and organic-carbon-bearing rocks. The integrated effect of these processes is reflected in the calcium carbonate compensation depth, which is the oceanic depth at which calcium carbonate is dissolved. Here we present a carbonate accumulation record that covers the past 53 million years from a depth transect in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The carbonate compensation depth tracks long-term ocean cooling, deepening from 3.0-3.5 kilometres during the early Cenozoic (approximately 55 million years ago) to 4.6 kilometres at present, consistent with an overall Cenozoic increase in weathering. We find large superimposed fluctuations in carbonate compensation depth during the middle and late Eocene. Using Earth system models, we identify changes in weathering and the mode of organic-carbon delivery as two key processes to explain these large-scale Eocene fluctuations of the carbonate compensation depth.

Ocean methane hydrates as a slow tipping point in the global carbon cycle

We present a model of the global methane inventory as hydrate and bubbles below the sea floor. The model predicts the inventory of CH(4) in the ocean today to be approximately 1600-2,000 Pg of C. Most of the hydrate in the model is in the Pacific, in large part because lower oxygen levels enhance the preservation of organic carbon. Because the oxygen concentration today may be different from the long-term average, the sensitivity of the model to O(2) is a source of uncertainty in predicting hydrate inventories. Cold water column temperatures in the high latitudes lead to buildup of hydrates in the Arctic and Antarctic at shallower depths than is possible in low latitudes. A critical bubble volume fraction threshold has been proposed as a critical threshold at which gas migrates all through the sediment column. Our model lacks many factors that lead to heterogeneity in the real hydrate reservoir in the ocean, such as preferential hydrate formation in sandy sediments and subsurface gas migration, and is therefore conservative in its prediction of releasable methane, finding only 35 Pg of C released after 3 degrees C of uniform warming by using a 10% critical bubble volume. If 2.5% bubble volume is taken as critical, then 940 Pg of C might escape in response to 3 degrees C warming. This hydrate model embedded into a global climate model predicts approximately 0.4-0.5 degrees C additional warming from the hydrate response to fossil fuel CO(2) release, initially because of methane, but persisting through the 10-kyr duration of the simulations because of the CO(2) oxidation product of methane.

The future of the carbon cycle: review, calcification response, ballast and feedback on atmospheric CO2

The operation of the carbon cycle forms an important part of the processes relevant to future changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The balance of carbon between terrestrial and oceanic reservoirs is an important factor and here we focus in particular on the oceans. Future changes in the carbon cycle that may affect air-sea partitioning of CO(2) are difficult to quantify but the palaeoceanographic record and modern observational studies provide important evidence of what variations might occur. These include changes in surface nutrient use, the oceanic inventory of nutrients, and the elemental composition and rain-rate ratio of marine particles. Recent work has identified two inter-linked processes of potential importance that we consider in some detail: the response of marine calcification to changes in surface water CO(2) and the association of particulate organic carbon with ballast minerals, in particular biogenic calcite. We review evidence from corals, coccolithophores and foraminifera, which suggests that the response of reduced calcification provides a negative feedback on rising atmospheric CO(2). We then use a box model to demonstrate how the calcification response may affect the organic carbon rain rate through the ballast effect. The ballast effect on export fluxes of organic and inorganic carbon acts to counteract the negative calcification response to increased CO(2). Thus, two oceanic buffers exert a significant control on ocean-atmosphere carbonate chemistry: the thermodynamic CO(2) buffer; and the ballast/calcification buffer. Just how tightly coupled the rain-rate ratio of CaCO(3)/C(org) is to fluxes of ballast minerals is an important question for future research.

Glacial/interglacial variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide

Twenty years ago, measurements on ice cores showed that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was lower during ice ages than it is today. As yet, there is no broadly accepted explanation for this difference. Current investigations focus on the ocean's 'biological pump', the sequestration of carbon in the ocean interior by the rain of organic carbon out of the surface ocean, and its effect on the burial of calcium carbonate in marine sediments. Some researchers surmise that the whole-ocean reservoir of algal nutrients was larger during glacial times, strengthening the biological pump at low latitudes, where these nutrients are currently limiting. Others propose that the biological pump was more efficient during glacial times because of more complete utilization of nutrients at high latitudes, where much of the nutrient supply currently goes unused. We present a version of the latter hypothesis that focuses on the open ocean surrounding Antarctica, involving both the biology and physics of that region.

Effect of iron supply on Southern Ocean CO2 uptake and implications for glacial atmospheric CO2

Photosynthesis by marine phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, and the associated uptake of carbon, is thought to be currently limited by the availability of iron. One implication of this limitation is that a larger iron supply to the region in glacial times could have stimulated algal photosynthesis, leading to lower concentrations of atmospheric CO2. Similarly, it has been proposed that artificial iron fertilization of the oceans might increase future carbon sequestration. Here we report data from a whole-ecosystem test of the iron-limitation hypothesis in the Southern Ocean, which show that surface uptake of atmospheric CO2 and uptake ratios of silica to carbon by phytoplankton were strongly influenced by nanomolar increases of iron concentration. We use these results to inform a model of global carbon and ocean nutrients, forced with atmospheric iron fluxes to the region derived from the Vostok ice-core dust record. During glacial periods, predicted magnitudes and timings of atmospheric CO2 changes match ice-core records well. At glacial terminations, the model suggests that forcing of Southern Ocean biota by iron caused the initial approximately 40 p.p.m. of glacial-interglacial CO2 change, but other mechanisms must have accounted for the remaining 40 p.p.m. increase. The experiment also confirms that modest sequestration of atmospheric CO2 by artificial additions of iron to the Southern Ocean is in principle possible, although the period and geographical extent over which sequestration would be effective remain poorly known.