Gebbie
Geoffrey A.
Gebbie
Geoffrey A.
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ArticleA synthesis of deglacial deep‐sea radiocarbon records and their (in)consistency with modern ocean ventilation(John Wiley & Sons, 2018-01-08) Zhao, Ning ; Marchal, Olivier ; Keigwin, Lloyd D. ; Amrhein, Daniel E. ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A.We present a synthesis of 1,361 deep‐sea radiocarbon data spanning the past 40 kyr and computed (for 14C‐dated records) from the same calibration to atmospheric 14C. The most notable feature in our compilation is a long‐term Δ14C decline in deep oceanic basins over the past 25 kyr. The Δ14C decline mirrors the drop in reconstructed atmospheric Δ14C, suggesting that it may reflect a decrease in global 14C inventory rather than a redistribution of 14C among different reservoirs. Motivated by this observation, we explore the extent to which the deep water Δ14C data jointly require changes in basin‐scale ventilation during the last deglaciation, based on the fit of a 16‐box model of modern ocean ventilation to the deep water Δ14C records. We find that the fit residuals can largely be explained by data uncertainties and that the surface water Δ14C values producing the fit are within the bounds provided by contemporaneous values of atmospheric and deep water Δ14C. On the other hand, some of the surface Δ14C values in the northern North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean deviate from the values expected from atmospheric 14CO2 and CO2 concentrations during the Heinrich Stadial 1 and the Bølling‐Allerød. The possibility that deep water Δ14C records reflect some combination of changes in deep circulation and surface water reservoir ages cannot be ruled out and will need to be investigated with a more complete model.
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ArticleMeridional circulation during the Last Glacial Maximum explored through a combination of South Atlantic δ18O observations and a geostrophic inverse model(American Geophysical Union, 2006-11-15) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Huybers, PeterThe vertical profile of meridional transport in the South Atlantic is examined by combining paleoceanographic observations with a geostrophic circulation model using an inverse method. δ18Ocalcite observations along the margins of the South Atlantic show that upper-ocean cross-basin differences were weaker during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) than the Holocene. The δ18Ocalcite observations can be explained by a shift of water-mass properties without any change in the overturning circulation. Alternatively, they may indicate a reduced LGM cross-basin density difference and, via the thermal wind relation, a reduced vertical shear. Model inversions of δ18Ocalcite are found to require meridional transports different from the modern only after three assumptions are made: temperature and salinity distributions are spatially smooth, the relationship between salinity and δ18Owater is linear and spatially invariant, and LGM temperatures are known to within 1°C along the margins. The last assumption is necessary because an independent constraint on temperature or salinity is required to determine density from δ18Ocalcite observations. δ18Ocalcite observations are clearly useful, but before any firm constraints can be placed on LGM meridional transport, it appears necessary to better determine the relationship between δ18Ocalcite and density.
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ArticleTracer transport timescales and the observed Atlantic-Pacific lag in the timing of the Last Termination(American Geophysical Union, 2012-09-06) Gebbie, Geoffrey A.The midpoint of the Last Termination occurred 4,000 years earlier in the deep Atlantic than the deep Pacific according to a pair of benthic foraminiferal δ18O records, seemingly implying an internal circulation shift because the lag is much longer than the deep radiocarbon age. Here a scenario where the lag is instead caused by regional surface boundary condition changes, delays due to oceanic transit timescales, and the interplay between temperature and seawater δ18O (δ18Ow) is quantified with a tracer transport model of the modern-day ocean circulation. Using an inverse method with individual Green functions for 2,806 surface sources, a time history of surface temperature and δ18Ow is reconstructed for the last 30,000 years that is consistent with the foraminiferal oxygen-isotope data, Mg/Ca-derived deep temperature, and glacial pore water records. Thus, in the case that the ocean circulation was relatively unchanged between glacial and modern times, the interbasin lag could be explained by the relatively late local glacial maximum around Antarctica where surface δ18Ow continues to rise even after the North Atlantic δ18Ow falls. The arrival of the signal of the Termination is delayed at the Pacific core site due to the destructive interference of the still-rising Antarctic signal and the falling North Atlantic signal. This scenario is only possible because the ocean is not a single conveyor belt where all waters at the Pacific core site previously passed the Atlantic core site, but instead the Pacific core site is bathed more prominently by waters with a direct Antarctic source.
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ArticleControllability, not chaos, key criterion for ocean state estimation(Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union & the American Geophysical Union, 2017-07-19) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Hsieh, Tsung-LinThe Lagrange multiplier method for combining observations and models (i.e., the adjoint method or "4D-VAR") has been avoided or approximated when the numerical model is highly nonlinear or chaotic. This approach has been adopted primarily due to difficulties in the initialization of low-dimensional chaotic models, where the search for optimal initial conditions by gradient-descent algorithms is hampered by multiple local minima. Although initialization is an important task for numerical weather prediction, ocean state estimation usually demands an additional task – a solution of the time-dependent surface boundary conditions that result from atmosphere–ocean interaction. Here, we apply the Lagrange multiplier method to an analogous boundary control problem, tracking the trajectory of the forced chaotic pendulum. Contrary to previous assertions, it is demonstrated that the Lagrange multiplier method can track multiple chaotic transitions through time, so long as the boundary conditions render the system controllable. Thus, the nonlinear timescale poses no limit to the time interval for successful Lagrange multiplier-based estimation. That the key criterion is controllability, not a pure measure of dynamical stability or chaos, illustrates the similarities between the Lagrange multiplier method and other state estimation methods. The results with the chaotic pendulum suggest that nonlinearity should not be a fundamental obstacle to ocean state estimation with eddy-resolving models, especially when using an improved first-guess trajectory.
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PreprintGlobal-mean marine δ13C and its uncertainty in a glacial state estimate( 2015-08) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Peterson, Carlye D. ; Lisiecki, Lorraine E. ; Spero, Howard J.A paleo-data compilation with 492 δ13C and δ18O observations provides the opportunity to better sample the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and infer its global properties, such as the mean δ13C of dissolved inorganic carbon. Here, the paleocompilation is used to reconstruct a steady-state water-mass distribution for the LGM, that in turn is used to map the data onto a 3D global grid. A global-mean marine δ13C value and a self-consistent uncertainty estimate are derived using the framework of state estimation (i.e., combining a numerical model and observations). The LGM global-mean δ13C is estimated to be 0:14h±0:20h at the two standard error level, giving a glacial-to-modern change of 0:32h±0:20h. The magnitude of the error bar is attributed to the uncertain glacial ocean circulation and the lack of observational constraints in the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans. Observations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans generally have 10 times the weight of an Atlantic point in the computation of the global mean. To halve the error bar, roughly four times more observations are needed, although strategic sampling may reduce this number. If dynamical constraints can be used to better characterize the LGM circulation, the error bar can also be reduced to 0:05 to 0:1h, emphasizing that knowledge of the circulation is vital to accurately map δ13CDIC in three dimensions.
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ArticleHow is the ocean filled?(American Geophysical Union, 2011-03-23) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Huybers, PeterThe ocean surface rapidly exchanges heat, freshwater, and gases with the atmosphere, but once water sinks into the ocean interior, the inherited properties of seawater are closely conserved. Previous water-mass decompositions have described the oceanic interior as being filled by just a few different property combinations, or water masses. Here we apply a new inversion technique to climatological tracer distributions to find the pathways by which the ocean is filled from over 10,000 surface regions, based on the discretization of the ocean surface at 2° by 2° resolution. The volume of water originating from each surface location is quantified in a global framework, and can be summarized by the estimate that 15% of the surface area fills 85% of the ocean interior volume. Ranked from largest to smallest, the volume contributions scaled by surface area follow a power-law distribution with an exponent of −1.09 ± 0.03 that appears indicative of the advective-diffusive filling characteristics of the ocean circulation, as demonstrated using a simple model. This work quantifies the connection between the surface and interior ocean, allowing insight into ocean composition, atmosphere-ocean interaction, and the transient response of the ocean to a changing climate.
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ArticleAtlantic warming since the little ice age(Oceanography Society, 2019-03-18) Gebbie, Geoffrey A.Radiocarbon observations suggest that the deep Atlantic Ocean takes up to several centuries to fully respond to changes at the sea surface. Thus, the ocean’s memory is longer than the modern instrumental period of oceanography, and the determination of modern warming of the subsurface Atlantic requires information from paleoceanographic data sets. In particular, paleoceanographic proxy data compiled by the Ocean2k project indicate that there was a global cooling from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age over the years 900−1800, followed by modern warming that began around 1850. An ocean simulation that is forced by a combined instrumental-proxy reconstruction of surface temperatures over the last 2,000 years shows that the deep Atlantic continues to cool even after the surface starts warming. As a consequence of the multicentury surface climate history, the ocean simulation suggests that the deep Atlantic doesn’t take up as much heat during the modern warming era as the case where the ocean was in equilibrium at 1750. Both historical hydrographic observations and proxy records of the subsurface Atlantic are needed to determine whether the effects of the Little Ice Age did indeed persist well after the surface climate had already shifted to warmer conditions.
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ThesisSubduction in an eddy-resolving state estimate of the northeast Atlantic Ocean(Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2004-06) Gebbie, Geoffrey A.Relatively little is known about the role of eddies in controlling subduction in the eastern half of the subtropical gyre. Here, a new tool to study the eastern North Atlantic Ocean is created by combining a regional, eddy-resolving numerical model with observations to produce a state estimate of the ocean circulation. The estimate is a synthesis of a variety of in-situ observations from the Subduction Experiment, TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry, and the MIT General Circulation Model. A novel aspect of this work is the search for an initial eddy field and eddy-scale open boundary conditions by the use of an adjoint model. The adjoint model for this region of the ocean is stable and yields useful information despite concerns about the chaotic nature of eddy-resolving models. The method is successful because the dynamics are only weakly nonlinear in the eastern region of the subtropical gyre. Therefore, no fundamental obstacle exists to constraining the model to both the large scale circulation and the eddy scale in this region of the ocean. Individual eddy trajectories can also be determined. The state estimate is consistent with observations, self-consistent with the equations of motion, and it explicitly resolves eddy-scale motions with a 1/6º grid. Therefore, subduction rates, volume budgets, and buoyancy budgets are readily diagnosed in a physically interpretable context. Estimates of eddy subduction for the eastern subtropical gyre of the North Atlantic are larger than previously calculated from parameterizations in coarse-resolution models. Eddies contribute up to 40 m/yr of subduction locally. Furthermore, eddy subduction rates have typical magnitudes of 15% of the total subduction rate. To evaluate the net effect of eddies on an individual density class, volume budgets are diagnosed. Eddies contribute as much as 1 Sv to diapycnal flux, and hence subduction, in the density range 25.5 < σ < 26.5. Eddies have a integrated impact which is sizable relative to the 2.5 Sv of diapycnal flux by the mean circulation. A combination of Eulerian and isopycnal maps suggest that the North Equatorial Current and the Azores Current are the geographical centers of eddy subduction. The findings of this thesis imply that the inability to resolve or accurately parameterize eddy subduction in climate models would lead to an accumulation of error in the structure of the main thermocline, even in the eastern subtropical gyre, which is a region of comparatively weak eddy motions.
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ArticleHow well would modern-day oceanic property distributions be known with paleoceanographic-like observations?(John Wiley & Sons, 2016-04-08) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Streletz, Gregory J. ; Spero, Howard J.Compilations of paleoceanographic observations for the deep sea now contain a few hundred points along the oceanic margins, mid-ocean ridges, and bathymetric highs, where seawater conditions are indirectly recorded in the chemistry of buried benthic foraminiferal shells. Here we design an idealized experiment to test our predictive ability to reconstruct modern-day seawater properties by considering paleoceanographic-like data. We attempt to reconstruct the known, modern-day global distributions by using a state estimation method that combines a kinematic tracer transport model with observations that have paleoceanographic characteristics. When a modern-like suite of observations (Θ, practical salinity, seawater δ18O, inline image, PO4, NO3, and O2) is used from the sparse paleolocations, the state estimate is consistent with the withheld data at all depths below 1500 m, suggesting that the observational sparsity can be overcome. Physical features, such as the interbasin gradients in deep inline image and the vertical structure of Atlantic inline image, are accurately reconstructed. The state estimation method extracts useful information from the pointwise observations to infer distributions at the largest oceanic scales (at least 10,000 km horizontally and 1500 m vertically) and outperforms a standard optimal interpolation technique even though neither dynamical constraints nor constraints from surface boundary fluxes are used. When the sparse observations are more realistically restricted to the paleoceanographic proxy observations of δ13C, δ18O, and Cd/Ca, however, the large-scale property distributions are no longer recovered coherently. At least three more water mass tracers are likely needed at the core sites in order to accurately reconstruct the large-scale property distributions of the Last Glacial Maximum.
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ArticleLess remineralized carbon in the intermediate-depth south Atlantic during Heinrich Stadial 1(American Geophysical Union, 2019-07-24) Lacerra, Matthew ; Lund, David C. ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Oppo, Delia W. ; Yu, Jimin ; Schmittner, Andreas ; Umling, Natalie E.The last deglaciation (~20–10 kyr BP) was characterized by a major shift in Earth's climate state, when the global mean surface temperature rose ~4 °C and the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased ~80 ppmv. Model simulations suggest that the initial 30 ppmv rise in atmospheric CO2 may have been driven by reduced efficiency of the biological pump or enhanced upwelling of carbon‐rich waters from the abyssal ocean. Here we evaluate these hypotheses using benthic foraminiferal B/Ca (a proxy for deep water [CO32−]) from a core collected at 1,100‐m water depth in the Southwest Atlantic. Our results imply that [CO32−] increased by 22 ± 2 μmol/kg early in Heinrich Stadial 1, or a decrease in ΣCO2 of approximately 40 μmol/kg, assuming there were no significant changes in alkalinity. Our data imply that remineralized phosphate declined by approximately 0.3 μmol/kg during Heinrich Stadial 1, equivalent to 40% of the modern remineralized signal at this location. Because tracer inversion results indicate remineralized phosphate at the core site reflects the integrated effect of export production in the sub‐Antarctic, our results imply that biological productivity in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean was reduced early in the deglaciation, contributing to the initial rise in atmospheric CO2.
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ArticleHow Is the ocean anthropogenic carbon reservoir filled?(American Geophysical Union, 2022-05-02) Davila Rodriguez, Xabier ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Brakstad, Ailin ; Lauvset, Siv K. ; McDonagh, Elaine L. ; Schwinger, Jorg ; Olsen, AreAbout a quarter of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions during the industrial era has been absorbed by the ocean. The rate limiting step for this uptake is the transport of the anthropogenic carbon (Cant) from the ocean mixed layer where it is absorbed to the interior ocean where it is stored. While it is generally known that deep water formation sites are important for vertical carbon transport, the exact magnitude of the fluxes across the base of the mixed layer in different regions is uncertain. Here, we determine where, when, and how much Cant has been injected across the mixed-layer base and into the interior ocean since the start of the industrialized era. We do this by combining a transport matrix derived from observations with a time-evolving boundary condition obtained from already published estimates of ocean Cant. Our results show that most of the Cant stored below the mixed layer are injected in the subtropics (40.1%) and the Southern Ocean (36.0%), while the Subpolar North Atlantic has the largest fluxes. The Subpolar North Atlantic is also the most important region for injecting Cant into the deep ocean with 81.6% of the Cant reaching depths greater than 1,000 m. The subtropics, on the other hand, have been the most efficient in transporting Cant across the mixed-layer base per volume of water ventilated. This study shows how the oceanic Cant uptake relies on vertical transports in a few oceanic regions and sheds light on the pathways that fill the ocean Cant reservoir.
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PreprintInferring surface water equilibrium calcite δ18O during the last deglacial period from benthic foraminiferal records : implications for ocean circulation(John Wiley & Sons, 2015-11-12) Amrhein, Daniel E. ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Marchal, Olivier ; Wunsch, CarlThe ocean circulation modifies mixed layer (ML) tracer signals as they are communicated to the deep ocean by advection and mixing. We develop and apply a procedure for using tracer signals observed “upstream” (by planktonic foraminifera) and “downstream” (by benthic foraminifera) to constrain how tracer signals are modified by the intervening circulation and, by extension, to constrain properties of that circulation. A history of ML equilibrium calcite δ18O (δ18Oc) spanning the last deglaciation is inferred from a least-squares fit of eight benthic foraminiferal δ18Oc records to Green's function estimated for the modern ocean circulation. Disagreements between this history and the ML history implied by planktonic records would indicate deviations from the modern circulation. No deviations are diagnosed because the two estimates of ML δ18Oc agree within their uncertainties, but we suggest data collection and modeling procedures useful for inferring circulation changes in future studies. Uncertainties of benthic-derived ML δ18Oc are lowest in the high-latitude regions chiefly responsible for ventilating the deep ocean; additional high-resolution planktonic records constraining these regions are of particular utility. Benthic records from the Southern Ocean, where data are sparse, appear to have the most power to reduce uncertainties in benthic-derived ML δ18Oc. Understanding the spatiotemporal covariance of deglacial ML δ18Oc will also improve abilities of δ18Oc records to constrain deglacial circulation.
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ArticleHow much did Glacial North Atlantic Water shoal?(John Wiley & Sons, 2014-03-13) Gebbie, Geoffrey A.Observations of δ13C and Cd/Ca from benthic foraminifera have been interpreted to reflect a shoaling of northern source waters by about 1000 m during the Last Glacial Maximum, with the degree of shoaling being significant enough for the water mass to be renamed Glacial North Atlantic Intermediate Water. These nutrient tracers, however, may not solely reflect changes in water mass distributions. To quantify the distribution of Glacial North Atlantic Water, we perform a glacial water mass decomposition where the sparsity of data, geometrical constraints, and nonconservative tracer effects are taken into account, and the extrapolation for the unknown water mass end-members is guided by the modern-day circulation. Under the assumption that the glacial sources of remineralized material are similar to that of the modern day, we find a steady solution consistent with 241 δ13C, 87 Cd/Ca, and 174 δ18O observations and their respective uncertainties. The water mass decomposition indicates that the core of Glacial North Atlantic Water shoals and southern source water extends in greater quantities into the abyssal North Atlantic, as previously inferred. The depth of the deep northern-southern water mass interface and the volume of North Atlantic Water, however, are not grossly different from that of the modern day. Under this scenario, the vertical structure of glacial δ13C and Cd/Ca is primarily due to the greater accumulation of nutrients in lower North Atlantic Water, which may be a signal of the hoarding of excess carbon from the atmosphere by the glacial Atlantic.
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ArticleA century of observed temperature change in the Indian Ocean(American Geophysical Union, 2022-06-25) Wenegrat, Jacob O. ; Bonanno, Emma ; Rack, Ursula ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A.The Indian Ocean is warming rapidly, with widespread effects on regional weather and global climate. Sea-surface temperature records indicate this warming trend extends back to the beginning of the 20th century, however the lack of a similarly long instrumental record of interior ocean temperatures leaves uncertainty around the subsurface trends. Here we utilize unique temperature observations from three historical German oceanographic expeditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: SMS Gazelle (1874–1876), Valdivia (1898–1899), and SMS Planet (1906–1907). These observations reveal a mean 20th century ocean warming that extends over the upper 750 m, and a spatial pattern of subsurface warming and cooling consistent with a 1°–2° southward shift of the southern subtropical gyre. These interior changes occurred largely over the last half of the 20th century, providing observational evidence for the acceleration of a multidecadal trend in subsurface Indian Ocean temperature.
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ArticleCancelation of deglacial thermosteric sea level rise by a barosteric effect(American Meteorological Society, 2020-12-01) Gebbie, Geoffrey A.Sea level rise over the last deglaciation is dominated by the mass of freshwater added to the oceans by the melting of the great ice sheets. While the steric effect of changing seawater density is secondary over the last 20 000 years, processes connected to deglacial warming, the redistribution of salt, and the pressure load of meltwater all influence sea level rise by more than a meter. Here we develop a diagnostic for steric effects that is valid when oceanic mass is changing. This diagnostic accounts for seawater compression due to the added overlying pressure of glacial meltwater, which is here defined to be a barosteric effect. Analysis of three-dimensional global seawater reconstructions of the last deglaciation indicates that thermosteric height change (1.0–1.5 m) is counteracted by barosteric (−1.9 m) and halosteric (from −0.4 to 0.0 m) effects. The total deglacial steric effect from −0.7 to −1.1 m has the opposite sign of analyses that assume that thermosteric expansion is dominant. Despite the vertical oceanic structure not being well constrained during the Last Glacial Maximum, net seawater contraction appears robust as it occurs in four reconstructions that were produced using different paleoceanographic datasets. Calculations that do not account for changes in ocean pressure give the misleading impression that steric effects enhanced deglacial sea level rise.
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ArticleCan paleoceanographic tracers constrain meridional circulation rates?(American Meteorological Society, 2007-02) Huybers, Peter ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Marchal, OlivierThe ability of paleoceanographic tracers to constrain rates of transport is examined using an inverse method to combine idealized observations with a geostrophic model. Considered are the spatial distribution, accuracy, and types of tracers required to constrain changes in meridional transport within an idealized single-hemisphere basin. Measurements of density and radioactive tracers each act to constrain rates of transport. Conservative tracers, while not of themselves able to inform regarding rates of transport, improve constraints when coupled with density or radioactive observations. It is found that the tracer data would require an accuracy one order of magnitude better than is presently available for paleo-observations to conclusively rule out factor-of-2 changes in meridional transport, even when assumed available over the entire model domain. When data are available only at the margins and bottom of the model, radiocarbon is unable to constrain transport while density remains effective only when a reference velocity level is assumed. The difficulty in constraining the circulation in this idealized model indicates that placing firm bounds on past meridional transport rates will prove challenging.
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PreprintA warm and poorly ventilated deep Arctic Mediterranean during the last glacial period( 2015-07) Thornalley, David J. R. ; Bauch, H. A. ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Guo, Weifu ; Ziegler, Martin ; Bernasconi, Stefano M. ; Barker, Stephen ; Skinner, Luke C. ; Yu, JiminChanges in the formation of dense water in the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas (the ‘Arctic Mediterranean’, AM) likely contributed to the altered climate of the last glacial period. We examine past changes in AM circulation by reconstructing 14C ventilation ages of the deep Nordic Seas over the last 30,000 years. Our results show that the deep glacial AM was extremely poorly ventilated (ventilation ages of up to 10,000 years). Subsequent episodic overflow of aged water into the mid-depth North Atlantic occurred during deglaciation. Proxy data also suggest the deep glacial AM was ~2-3°C warmer than modern; deglacial mixing of the deep AM with the upper ocean thus potentially contributed to melting sea-ice and icebergs, as well as proximal terminal ice-sheet margins.
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ArticleThe mean age of ocean waters inferred from radiocarbon observations : sensitivity to surface sources and accounting for mixing histories(American Meteorological Society, 2012-02) Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Huybers, PeterA number of previous observational studies have found that the waters of the deep Pacific Ocean have an age, or elapsed time since contact with the surface, of 700–1000 yr. Numerical models suggest ages twice as old. Here, the authors present an inverse framework to determine the mean age and its upper and lower bounds given Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) radiocarbon observations, and they show that the potential range of ages increases with the number of constituents or sources that are included in the analysis. The inversion requires decomposing the World Ocean into source waters, which is obtained here using the total matrix intercomparison (TMI) method at up to 2° × 2° horizontal resolution with 11 113 surface sources. The authors find that the North Pacific at 2500-m depth can be no younger than 1100 yr old, which is older than some previous observational estimates. Accounting for the broadness of surface regions where waters originate leads to a reservoir-age correction of almost 100 yr smaller than would be estimated with a two or three water-mass decomposition and explains some of the discrepancy with previous observational studies. A best estimate of mean age is also presented using the mixing history along circulation pathways. Subject to the caveats that inference of the mixing history would benefit from further observations and that radiocarbon cannot rule out the presence of extremely old waters from exotic sources, the deep North Pacific waters are 1200–1500 yr old, which is more in line with existing numerical model results.
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ArticleAtlantic circulation and ice sheet influences on upper South Atlantic temperatures during the last deglaciation(American Geophysical Union, 2019-05-28) Umling, Natalie E. ; Oppo, Delia W. ; Chen, P. ; Yu, Jimin ; Liu, Zhengyu ; Yan, Mi ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Lund, David C. ; Pietro, Kathryn R. ; Jin, Z. D. ; Huang, Kuo-Fang ; Costa, Karen ; Toledo, Felipe Antonio de LimaAtlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) disruption during the last deglaciation is hypothesized to have caused large subsurface ocean temperature anomalies, but records from key regions are not available to test this hypothesis, and other possible drivers of warming have not been fully considered. Here, we present the first reliable evidence for subsurface warming in the South Atlantic during Heinrich Stadial 1, confirming the link between large‐scale heat redistribution and AMOC. Warming extends across the Bølling‐Allerød despite predicted cooling at this time, thus spanning intervals of both weak and strong AMOC indicating another forcing mechanism that may have been previously overlooked. Transient model simulations and quasi‐conservative water mass tracers suggest that reduced northward upper ocean heat transport was responsible for the early deglacial (Heinrich Stadial 1) accumulation of heat at our shallower (~1,100 m) site. In contrast, the results suggest that warming at our deeper site (~1,900 m) site was dominated by southward advection of North Atlantic middepth heat anomalies. During the Bølling‐Allerød, the demise of ice sheets resulted in oceanographic changes in the North Atlantic that reduced convective heat loss to the atmosphere, causing subsurface warming that overwhelmed the cooling expected from an AMOC reinvigoration. The data and simulations suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 did not contribute significantly to deglacial subsurface warming at our sites.
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ArticleData constraints on glacial Atlantic Water mass geometry and properties(John Wiley & Sons, 2018-09-27) Oppo, Delia W. ; Gebbie, Geoffrey A. ; Huang, Kuo-Fang ; Curry, William B. ; Marchitto, Thomas M. ; Pietro, Kathryn R.The chemical composition of benthic foraminifera from marine sediment cores provides information on how glacial subsurface water properties differed from modern, but separating the influence of changes in the origin and end‐member properties of subsurface water from changes in flows and mixing is challenging. Spatial gaps in coverage of glacial data add to the uncertainty. Here we present new data from cores collected from the Demerara Rise in the western tropical North Atlantic, including cores from the modern tropical phosphate maximum at Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) depths. The results suggest lower phosphate concentration and higher carbonate saturation state within the phosphate maximum than modern despite similar carbon isotope values, consistent with less accumulation of respired nutrients and carbon, and reduced air‐sea gas exchange in source waters to the region. An inversion of new and published glacial data confirms these inferences and further suggests that lower preformed nutrients in AAIW, and partial replacement of this still relatively high‐nutrient AAIW with nutrient‐depleted, carbonate‐rich waters sourced from the region of the modern‐day northern subtropics, also contributed to the observed changes. The results suggest that glacial preformed and remineralized phosphate were lower throughout the upper Atlantic, but deep phosphate concentration was higher. The inversion, which relies on the fidelity of the paleoceanographic data, suggests that the partial replacement of North Atlantic sourced deep water by Southern Ocean Water was largely responsible for the apparent deep North Atlantic phosphate increase, rather than greater remineralization.