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Contribution of Southern Ocean surface-water stratification to low atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the last glacial period

Nature volume 389, pages 929–935 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

The nitrogen-isotope record preserved in Southern Ocean sediments, along with several geochemical tracers for the settling fluxes of biogenic matter, reveals patterns of past nutrient supply to phytoplankton and surface-water stratification in this oceanic region. Areal averaging of these spatial patterns indicates that reduction of the CO2 ‘leak’ from ocean to atmosphere by increased surface-water stratification south of the Polar Front made a greater contribution to the lowering of atmospheric CO2 concentration during the Last Glacial Maximum than did the increased export of organic carbon from surface to deep waters occurring further north.

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Figure 1: Comparison of geochemical data for Holocene and last-glacial timesderived from deep-sea sediment cores.
Figure 2: Difference between last-glacial and Holocene values of geochemical data.
Figure 3: Age dependence of geochemical data from two sediment cores from theIndian sector of the Southern Ocean.
Figure 4: Bulk sediment δ15N.
Figure 5: Changes in export flux, vertical mixing and nutrient utilization inferred for the Atlantic and central Indian sector of the Southern Ocean.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry,

    Roger François & Michael P. Bacon

  2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Mark A. Altabet

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Marine Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth, 02747, Massachusetts, USA

    Ein-Fen Yu

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipe, 117, Taiwan

    Daniel M. Sigman

  5. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PR, UK

    Martin Frank

  6. GEOMAR Research Center for Marine Geosciences, Kiel, 24148, Germany

    Gerhard Bohrmann

  7. Département de Géologie et Océanographie, Université de Bordeaux I, Talence, 33405, Cedex, France

    Gilles Bareille

  8. Centre des Faibles Radioactivités, Laboratoire mixte CNRS-CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91198, Cedex, France

    Laurent D. Labeyrie

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  1. Roger François
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Correspondence to Roger François.

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François, R., Altabet, M., Yu, EF. et al. Contribution of Southern Ocean surface-water stratification to low atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the last glacial period. Nature 389, 929–935 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/40073

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