Abstract
Previous models of physical and biogeochemical controls of the evolution of atmospheric CO2 and climate over hundreds of millions of years have neglected the effect of variations in the balance between shallow-ocean and deep-ocean carbonate deposition. This is important because the relative proportions of carbonate burial in the two reservoirs have changed over time. Here I set up a model of the carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle that distinguishes carbonate masses produced by the two types of burial and shows that reasonable increases in deep-ocean burial could produce substantial warmings over a few hundred million years. The model includes exchanges between crust and mantle; transients from burial shifts are found to be sensitive to the fraction of non-degassed carbonates subducted into the mantle. Without the habitation of the open ocean by plankton such as foraminifera and coccolithophores, today's climate would be substantially colder.
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Volk, T. Sensitivity of climate and atmospheric CO2 to deep-ocean and shallow-ocean carbonate burial. Nature 337, 637–640 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/337637a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/337637a0
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