The cause of carbon isotope minimum events on glacial terminations

Shifting Antarctic Circumpolar Current south of Africa over the past 1.9 million years

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) dominates the transfer of heat, salt, and tracers around the Southern Ocean (SO), driving the upwelling of carbon-rich deep waters around Antarctica. Paleoclimate reconstructions reveal marked variability in SO circulation; however, few records exist coupling quantitative reconstructions of ACC flow with tracers of SO upwelling spanning multiple Pleistocene glacial cycles. Here, we reconstruct near-bottom flow speed variability in the SO south of Africa, revealing systematic glacial-interglacial variations in the strength and/or proximity of ACC jets. These are superimposed by warmer-than-present "super-interglacials," whereby extreme slowdown in the midlatitude ACC (41°S) is opposed by faster flow at higher latitudes (>54°S), implying poleward strengthening of the ACC. Coupled with reconstructions of the subsurface-deep stable carbon isotope gradient, we show that the reorganization of ACC coincides with the upwelling of isotopically light deep waters around Antarctica, likely contributing to the interglacial rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels.

An atmospheric chronology for the glacial-deglacial Eastern Equatorial Pacific

Paleoclimate reconstructions are only as good as their chronology. In particular, different chronological assumptions for marine sediment cores can lead to different reconstructions of ocean ventilation age and atmosphere−ocean carbon exchange history. Here we build the first high-resolution chronology that is free of the dating uncertainties common in marine sediment records, based on radiocarbon dating twigs found with computed tomography scans in two cores from the Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP). With this accurate chronology, we show that the ventilation ages of the EEP thermocline and intermediate waters were similar to today during the Last Glacial Maximum and deglaciation, in contradiction with previous studies. Our results suggest that the glacial respired carbon pool in the EEP was not significantly older than today, and that the deglacial strengthening of the equatorial Pacific carbon source was probably driven by low-latitude processes rather than an increased subsurface supply of upwelled carbon from high-latitude oceans.

Chronological assumptions in marine sediment records can result in uncertainties in paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Here, using computed tomography to identify in situ woody debris, the authors construct a robust ¹⁴C chronology and reassess ventilation ages in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific during the LGM.

Ocean dynamics, not dust, have controlled equatorial Pacific productivity over the past 500,000 years

Biological productivity in the equatorial Pacific is relatively high compared with other low-latitude regimes, especially east of the dateline, where divergence driven by the trade winds brings nutrient-rich waters of the Equatorial Undercurrent to the surface. The equatorial Pacific is one of the three principal high-nutrient low-chlorophyll ocean regimes where biological utilization of nitrate and phosphate is limited, in part, by the availability of iron. Throughout most of the equatorial Pacific, upwelling of water from the Equatorial Undercurrent supplies far more dissolved iron than is delivered by dust, by as much as two orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, recent studies have inferred that the greater supply of dust during ice ages stimulated greater utilization of nutrients within the region of upwelling on the equator, thereby contributing to the sequestration of carbon in the ocean interior. Here we present proxy records for dust and for biological productivity over the past 500 ky at three sites spanning the breadth of the equatorial Pacific Ocean to test the dust fertilization hypothesis. Dust supply peaked under glacial conditions, consistent with previous studies, whereas proxies of export production exhibit maxima during ice age terminations. Temporal decoupling between dust supply and biological productivity indicates that other factors, likely involving ocean dynamics, played a greater role than dust in regulating equatorial Pacific productivity.

Increased reservoir ages and poorly ventilated deep waters inferred in the glacial Eastern Equatorial Pacific

Consistent evidence for a poorly ventilated deep Pacific Ocean that could have released its radiocarbon-depleted carbon stock to the atmosphere during the last deglaciation has long been sought. Such evidence remains lacking, in part due to a paucity of surface reservoir age reconstructions required for accurate deep-ocean ventilation age estimates. Here we combine new radiocarbon data from the Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP) with chronostratigraphic calendar age constraints to estimate shallow sub-surface reservoir age variability, and thus provide estimates of deep-ocean ventilation ages. Both shallow- and deep-water ventilation ages drop across the last deglaciation, consistent with similar reconstructions from the South Pacific and Southern Ocean. The observed regional fingerprint linking the Southern Ocean and the EEP is consistent with a dominant southern source for EEP thermocline waters and suggests relatively invariant ocean interior transport pathways but significantly reduced air-sea gas exchange in the glacial southern high latitudes.

Paleoceanographic insights on recent oxygen minimum zone expansion: lessons for modern oceanography

Climate-driven Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) expansions in the geologic record provide an opportunity to characterize the spatial and temporal scales of OMZ change. Here we investigate OMZ expansion through the global-scale warming event of the most recent deglaciation (18-11 ka), an event with clear relevance to understanding modern anthropogenic climate change. Deglacial marine sediment records were compiled to quantify the vertical extent, intensity, surface area and volume impingements of hypoxic waters upon continental margins. By integrating sediment records (183-2,309 meters below sea level; mbsl) containing one or more geochemical, sedimentary or microfossil oxygenation proxies integrated with analyses of eustatic sea level rise, we reconstruct the timing, depth and intensity of seafloor hypoxia. The maximum vertical OMZ extent during the deglaciation was variable by region: Subarctic Pacific (~600-2,900 mbsl), California Current (~330-1,500 mbsl), Mexico Margin (~330-830 mbsl), and the Humboldt Current and Equatorial Pacific (~110-3,100 mbsl). The timing of OMZ expansion is regionally coherent but not globally synchronous. Subarctic Pacific and California Current continental margins exhibit tight correlation to the oscillations of Northern Hemisphere deglacial events (Termination IA, Bølling-Allerød, Younger Dryas and Termination IB). Southern regions (Mexico Margin and the Equatorial Pacific and Humboldt Current) exhibit hypoxia expansion prior to Termination IA (~14.7 ka), and no regional oxygenation oscillations. Our analyses provide new evidence for the geographically and vertically extensive expansion of OMZs, and the extreme compression of upper-ocean oxygenated ecosystems during the geologically recent deglaciation.

Larger CO₂ source at the equatorial Pacific during the last deglaciation

While biogeochemical and physical processes in the Southern Ocean are thought to be central to atmospheric CO₂ rise during the last deglaciation, the role of the equatorial Pacific, where the largest CO₂ source exists at present, remains largely unconstrained. Here we present seawater pH and pCO₂ variations from fossil Porites corals in the mid equatorial Pacific offshore Tahiti based on a newly calibrated boron isotope paleo-pH proxy. Our new data, together with recalibrated existing data, indicate that a significant pCO₂ increase (pH decrease), accompanied by anomalously large marine (14)C reservoir ages, occurred following not only the Younger Dryas, but also Heinrich Stadial 1. These findings indicate an expanded zone of equatorial upwelling and resultant CO₂ emission, which may be derived from higher subsurface dissolved inorganic carbon concentration.

Eastern equatorial pacific productivity and related-CO2 changes since the last glacial period

Understanding oceanic processes, both physical and biological, that control atmospheric CO(2) is vital for predicting their influence during the past and into the future. The Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP) is thought to have exerted a strong control over glacial/interglacial CO(2) variations through its link to circulation and nutrient-related changes in the Southern Ocean, the primary region of the world oceans where CO(2)-enriched deep water is upwelled to the surface ocean and comes into contact with the atmosphere. Here we present a multiproxy record of surface ocean productivity, dust inputs, and thermocline conditions for the EEP over the last 40,000 y. This allows us to detect changes in phytoplankton productivity and composition associated with increases in equatorial upwelling intensity and influence of Si-rich waters of sub-Antarctic origin. Our evidence indicates that diatoms outcompeted coccolithophores at times when the influence of Si-rich Southern Ocean intermediate waters was greatest. This shift from calcareous to noncalcareous phytoplankton would cause a lowering in atmospheric CO(2) through a reduced carbonate pump, as hypothesized by the Silicic Acid Leakage Hypothesis. However, this change does not seem to have been crucial in controlling atmospheric CO(2), as it took place during the deglaciation, when atmospheric CO(2) concentrations had already started to rise. Instead, the concomitant intensification of Antarctic upwelling brought large quantities of deep CO(2)-rich waters to the ocean surface. This process very likely dominated any biologically mediated CO(2) sequestration and probably accounts for most of the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO(2).

Upper-ocean-to-atmosphere radiocarbon offsets imply fast deglacial carbon dioxide release

Radiocarbon in the atmosphere is regulated largely by ocean circulation, which controls the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) in the deep sea through atmosphere-ocean carbon exchange. During the last glaciation, lower atmospheric CO(2) levels were accompanied by increased atmospheric radiocarbon concentrations that have been attributed to greater storage of CO(2) in a poorly ventilated abyssal ocean. The end of the ice age was marked by a rapid increase in atmospheric CO(2) concentrations that coincided with reduced (14)C/(12)C ratios (Delta(14)C) in the atmosphere, suggesting the release of very 'old' ((14)C-depleted) CO(2) from the deep ocean to the atmosphere. Here we present radiocarbon records of surface and intermediate-depth waters from two sediment cores in the southwest Pacific and Southern oceans. We find a steady 170 per mil decrease in Delta(14)C that precedes and roughly equals in magnitude the decrease in the atmospheric radiocarbon signal during the early stages of the glacial-interglacial climatic transition. The atmospheric decrease in the radiocarbon signal coincides with regionally intensified upwelling and marine biological productivity, suggesting that CO(2) released by means of deep water upwelling in the Southern Ocean lost most of its original depleted-(14)C imprint as a result of exchange and isotopic equilibration with the atmosphere. Our data imply that the deglacial (14)C depletion previously identified in the eastern tropical North Pacific must have involved contributions from sources other than the previously suggested carbon release by way of a deep Southern Ocean pathway, and may reflect the expanded influence of the (14)C-depleted North Pacific carbon reservoir across this interval. Accordingly, shallow water masses advecting north across the South Pacific in the early deglaciation had little or no residual (14)C-depleted signals owing to degassing of CO(2) and biological uptake in the Southern Ocean.

Ventilation of the deep Southern Ocean and deglacial CO2 rise

Past glacial-interglacial increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are thought to arise from the rapid release of CO2 sequestered in the deep sea, primarily via the Southern Ocean. Here, we present radiocarbon evidence from the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean that strongly supports this hypothesis. We show that during the last glacial period, deep water circulating around Antarctica was more than two times older than today relative to the atmosphere. During deglaciation, the dissipation of this old and presumably CO2-enriched deep water played an important role in the pulsed rise of atmospheric CO2 through its variable influence on the upwelling branch of the Antarctic overturning circulation.

Interhemispheric Atlantic seesaw response during the last deglaciation

The asynchronous relationship between millennial-scale temperature changes over Greenland and Antarctica during the last glacial period has led to the notion of a bipolar seesaw which acts to redistribute heat depending on the state of meridional overturning circulation within the Atlantic Ocean. Here we present new records from the South Atlantic that show rapid changes during the last deglaciation that were instantaneous (within dating uncertainty) and of opposite sign to those observed in the North Atlantic. Our results demonstrate a direct link between the abrupt changes associated with variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the more gradual adjustments characteristic of the Southern Ocean. These results emphasize the importance of the Southern Ocean for the development and transmission of millennial-scale climate variability and highlight its role in deglacial climate change and the associated rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Wind-driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean and the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2

Wind-driven upwelling in the ocean around Antarctica helps regulate the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) between the deep sea and the atmosphere, as well as the supply of dissolved silicon to the euphotic zone of the Southern Ocean. Diatom productivity south of the Antarctic Polar Front and the subsequent burial of biogenic opal in underlying sediments are limited by this silicon supply. We show that opal burial rates, and thus upwelling, were enhanced during the termination of the last ice age in each sector of the Southern Ocean. In the record with the greatest temporal resolution, we find evidence for two intervals of enhanced upwelling concurrent with the two intervals of rising atmospheric CO2 during deglaciation. These results directly link increased ventilation of deep water to the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2.

Vital effects and beyond: a modelling perspective on developing palaeoceanographical proxy relationships in foraminifera

This paper mainly reviews our recent work on the biology and geochemistry of foraminifera with respect to their use as palaeoceanographic proxies. Our approach to proxy validation and development is described, primarily from a modeler's point of view. The approach is based on complementary steps in understanding the inorganic chemistry, inorganic isotope fractionation, and biological controls that determine palaeo-tracer signals in organisms used in climate reconstructions. Integration of laboratory experiments, field and culture studies, theoretical considerations and numerical modelling holds the key to the method's success. We describe effects of life-processes in foraminifera on stable carbon, oxygen, and boron isotopes as well as Mg incorporation into foraminiferal calcite shells. Stable boron isotopes will be used to illustrate our approach. We show that a mechanism-based understanding is often required before primary climate signals can be extracted from the geologic record because the signals can be heavily overprinted by secondary, non-climate related phenomena. Moreover, for some of the proxies, fundamental knowledge on the thermodynamic, inorganic basis is still lacking. One example is stable boron isotopes, a palaeo-pH proxy, for which the boron isotope fractionation between the dissolved boron compounds in seawater was not precisely known until recently. Attempts to overcome such hurdles are described and implications of our work for palaeoceanographic reconstructions are discussed.

Marine radiocarbon evidence for the mechanism of deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise

We reconstructed the radiocarbon activity of intermediate waters in the eastern North Pacific over the past 38,000 years. Radiocarbon activity paralleled that of the atmosphere, except during deglaciation, when intermediate-water values fell by more than 300 per mil. Such a large decrease requires a deglacial injection of very old waters from a deep-ocean carbon reservoir that was previously well isolated from the atmosphere. The timing of intermediate-water radiocarbon depletion closely matches that of atmospheric carbon dioxide rise and effectively traces the redistribution of carbon from the deep ocean to the atmosphere during deglaciation.

Rapid rise of sea level 19,000 years ago and its global implications

Evidence from the Irish Sea basin supports the existence of an abrupt rise in sea level (meltwater pulse) at 19,000 years before the present (B.P.). Climate records indicate a large reduction in the strength of North Atlantic Deep Water formation and attendant cooling of the North Atlantic at this time, indicating a source of the meltwater pulse from one or more Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. Warming of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Southern Hemisphere also began at 19,000 years B.P. These responses identify mechanisms responsible for the propagation of deglacial climate signals to the Southern Hemisphere and tropics while maintaining a cold climate in the Northern Hemisphere.

A 23,000-year record of surface water pH and PCO2 in the western equatorial Pacific Ocean

The oceans play a major role in defining atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and although the geographical distribution of CO2 uptake and release in the modern ocean is understood, little is known about past distributions. Boron isotope studies of planktonic foraminifera from the western equatorial Pacific show that this area was a strong source of CO2 to the atmosphere between approximately 13,800 and 15,600 years ago. This observation is most compatible with increased frequency of La Niña conditions during this interval. Hence, increased upwelling in the eastern equatorial Pacific may have played an important role in the rise in atmospheric CO2 during the last deglaciation.