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The acceleration of oceanic denitrification during deglacial warming

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 579–584 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Over much of the ocean’s surface, productivity and growth are limited by a scarcity of bioavailable nitrogen. Sedimentary δ15N records spanning the last deglaciation suggest marked shifts in the nitrogen cycle during this time, but the quantification of these changes has been hindered by the complexity of nitrogen isotope cycling. Here we present a database of δ15N in sediments throughout the world’s oceans, including 2,329 modern seafloor samples, and 76 timeseries spanning the past 30,000 years. We show that the δ15N values of modern seafloor sediments are consistent with values predicted by our knowledge of nitrogen cycling in the water column. Despite many local deglacial changes, the globally averaged δ15N values of sinking organic matter were similar during the Last Glacial Maximum and Early Holocene. Considering the global isotopic mass balance, we explain these observations with the following deglacial history of nitrogen inventory processes. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the nitrogen cycle was near steady state. During the deglaciation, denitrification in the pelagic water column accelerated. The flooding of continental shelves subsequently increased denitrification at the seafloor, and denitrification reached near steady-state conditions again in the Early Holocene. We use a recent parameterization of seafloor denitrification to estimate a 30–120% increase in benthic denitrification between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago. Based on the similarity of globally averaged δ15N values during the Last Glacial Maximum and Early Holocene, we infer that pelagic denitrification must have increased by a similar amount between the two steady states.

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Figure 1: The global nitrogen isotopic balance.
Figure 2: The δ15N of bulk sedimentary organic matter as observed and simulated.
Figure 3: Deglacial δ15N records and export flux at 100 m.
Figure 4: Deglacial changes in denitrification and δ15Nmean.

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Acknowledgements

Support for the Nitrogen Cycle in the Oceans Past and Present (NICOPP) working group meetings was provided by PAGES, IMAGES and GEOTOP. E.D.G., D.B. and M.K. are supported by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, McGill University, 3450 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7, Canada

    Eric D. Galbraith & Daniele Bianchi

  2. Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, PO Box 15000, Canada

    Markus Kienast, Stephanie Kienast & Christopher Somes

  3. Departamento de Geoquı´mica, Instituto de Quı´mica, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro 24.020-015, Brazil

    Ana Luiza Albuquerque

  4. School for Marine Science and Technology, U Massachusetts Dartmouth, 706 Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, Massachusetts 02744-1221, USA

    Mark A. Altabet

  5. Ocean Sciences Deptartment, University of California, Santa Cruz 95064, USA

    Fabian Batista & Matthew McCarthy

  6. Department of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2020-2207 Main Mall, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Stephen E. Calvert, Roger Francois & Tara Ivanochko

  7. Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota Duluth, 2205 E. 5th Street, Research Laboratory Building 205, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA

    Sergio Contreras

  8. Université Bordeaux 1, UMR CNRS 5805 EPOC, Avenue des facultés, 33405 Talence cedex, France

    Xavier Crosta & Philippe Martinez

  9. Department of Oceanography, Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR)2, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepcion 4070386, Chile

    Ricardo De Pol-Holz

  10. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Clark 120A, MS #23, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

    Nathalie Dubois

  11. UMR 7159 LOCEAN, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, 4 Place Jussieu, Boite 100, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

    Johan Etourneau

  12. Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Sec. 2, Nankang Taipei, Taiwan 115, R.O.C.

    Ting-Chang Hsu

  13. Geological Institute, ETH Zurich, Sonneggstrasse 5, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland

    Samuel L. Jaccard, Anna Nele Meckler & Anja S. Studer

  14. Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan

    Shuh-Ji Kao

  15. PAGES International Project Office, Zähringerstrasse 25, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

    Thorsten Kiefer

  16. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 30, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland

    Moritz F. Lehmann

  17. College of Earth, Oceanic, & Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, CEOAS Administration Building 104, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-5503, USA

    Alan Mix & Andreas Schmittner

  18. Institute for Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, Hamburg University, Bundesstrasse 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany

    Jürgen Möbius

  19. Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 2Y2, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, Canada

    Tom F. Pedersen

  20. School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, Scotland, UK

    Laetitia Pichevin

  21. Boone Pickens School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, 105 Noble Research Center, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074, USA

    Tracy M. Quan

  22. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay Campus, Narragansett, Rhode Island 02882, USA

    Rebecca S. Robinson

  23. GEOMAR Helmholtz-Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany

    Evgeniya Ryabenko

  24. Institut fuer Geowissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Str. 10, 24118 Kiel, Germany

    Ralph Schneider

  25. Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, 367 Panama Street, Stanford, California 94305, USA

    Aya Schneider-Mor

  26. Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 0600810, Japan

    Masahito Shigemitsu

  27. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8525, USA

    Dan Sinclair

  28. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road (Ring Road), Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 2Y2, PO Box 1700 Station CSC, Canada

    Jan-Erik Tesdal

  29. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA

    Robert Thunell

  30. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China

    Jin-Yu Terence Yang

Authors
  1. Eric D. Galbraith
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  2. Markus Kienast
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Consortia

The NICOPP working group members

  • Eric D. Galbraith
  • , Markus Kienast
  • , Ana Luiza Albuquerque
  • , Mark A. Altabet
  • , Fabian Batista
  • , Daniele Bianchi
  • , Stephen E. Calvert
  • , Sergio Contreras
  • , Xavier Crosta
  • , Ricardo De Pol-Holz
  • , Nathalie Dubois
  • , Johan Etourneau
  • , Roger Francois
  • , Ting-Chang Hsu
  • , Tara Ivanochko
  • , Samuel L. Jaccard
  • , Shuh-Ji Kao
  • , Thorsten Kiefer
  • , Stephanie Kienast
  • , Moritz F. Lehmann
  • , Philippe Martinez
  • , Matthew McCarthy
  • , Anna Nele Meckler
  • , Alan Mix
  • , Jürgen Möbius
  • , Tom F. Pedersen
  • , Laetitia Pichevin
  • , Tracy M. Quan
  • , Rebecca S. Robinson
  • , Evgeniya Ryabenko
  • , Andreas Schmittner
  • , Ralph Schneider
  • , Aya Schneider-Mor
  • , Masahito Shigemitsu
  • , Dan Sinclair
  • , Christopher Somes
  • , Anja S. Studer
  • , Jan-Erik Tesdal
  • , Robert Thunell
  •  & Jin-Yu Terence Yang

Contributions

M.K., T.K. and E.D.G. initiated and led the NICOPP working group. J-E.T., E.D.G. and M.K. assembled the database. D.B. made the δ15N-province, benthic denitrification and box model calculations. C.S. ran the UVic biogeochemical model simulations. E.D.G. wrote the manuscript with contributions from M.K. All coauthors participated in discussions at the working group meetings and edited the manuscript, and/or contributed previously unpublished data.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric D. Galbraith.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Galbraith, E., Kienast, M. & The NICOPP working group members. The acceleration of oceanic denitrification during deglacial warming. Nature Geosci 6, 579–584 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1832

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