1,721,039 research outputs found
Enhanced carbon dioxide outgassing from the eastern equatorial Atlantic during the last glacial
Full text linkBiological productivity and carbon export in the equatorial Atlantic are thought to have been dramatically higher during the last glacial period than during the Holocene. Here we reconstruct the pH and CO2 content of surface waters from the eastern equatorial Atlantic Ocean over the past ?30 k.y. using the boron isotope composition of Globigerinoides ruber (a mixed-layer–dwelling planktic foraminifera). Our new record, combined with previously published data, indicates that during the last glacial, in contrast to today, a strong west to east gradient existed in the extent of air:sea equilibrium with respect to pCO2 (?pCO2), with the eastern equatorial Atlantic acting as a significant source of CO2 (+100 ?atm) while the western Atlantic remained close to equilibrium (+25 ?atm). This pattern suggests that a fivefold increase in the upwelling rate of deeper waters drove increased Atlantic productivity and large-scale regional cooling during the last glacial, but the higher than modern ?pCO2 in the east indicates that export production did not keep up with enhanced upwelling of nutrients. However, the downstream decline of ?pCO2 provides evidence that the unused nutrients from the east were eventually used for biologic carbon export, thereby effectively negating the impact of changes in upwelling on atmospheric CO2 levels. Our findings indicate that the equatorial Atlantic exerted a minimal role in contributing to lower glacial-age atmospheric CO2
Seawater pH, pCO2 and [CO2?3] variations in the Caribbean Sea over the last 130 kyr: A boron isotope and B/Ca study of planktic foraminifera
No full textRelationship between sea level and climate forcing by CO2 on geological timescales
No full textOn 103- to 106-year timescales, global sea level is determined largely by the volume of ice stored on land, which in turn largely reflects the thermal state of the Earth system. Here we use observations from five well-studied time slices covering the last 40 My to identify a well-defined and clearly sigmoidal relationship between atmospheric CO2 and sea level on geological (near-equilibrium) timescales. This strongly supports the dominant role of CO2 in determining Earth’s climate on these timescales and suggests that other variables that influence long-term global climate (e.g., topography, ocean circulation) play a secondary role. The relationship between CO2 and sea level we describe portrays the “likely”(68% probability) long-term sea-level response after Earth system adjustment over many centuries. Because it appears largely independent of other boundary condition changes, it also may provide useful long-range predictions of future sea level. For instance, with CO2 stabilized at 400–450 ppm (as required for the frequently quoted “acceptable warming” of 2 °C), or even at AD 2011 levels of 392 ppm, we infer a likely (68% confidence) long-term sea-level rise of more than 9 m above the present. Therefore, our results imply that to avoid significantly elevated sea level in the long term, atmospheric CO2 should be reduced to levels similar to those of preindustrial times
The consequence of Quaternary changes in chemical weathering rate for ocean chemistry (abstract of paper presented at: 17th Annual V. M. Goldschmidt Conference Cologne, Germany August 2007)
No full textQuaternary weathering rates and marine geochemical budgets (abstract of paper presented at: 18th Annual V. M. Goldschmidt Conference Vancouver, Canada, July 2008)
No full textInsights into the patterns and locations of erosion in the Himalaya — A combined fission-track and in situ Sm–Nd isotopic study of detrital apatite
No full textUnderstanding the role that climate, erosion and tectonics play in determining the mean relief, elevation and general form of a mountain range over time has become the focus of much recent research in the field of tectonic geomorphology. A crucial constraint in these studies is the long-term exhumation rate, which is increasingly being examined using detrital minerals from the sedimentary rock record that represent the eroded remnants of the orogen. A classic field area of such studies is the Himalayan orogen — the Earth's largest mountain range. We describe here a novel approach that uses the in situ analysis of Nd isotopes by laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry of fission-track dated apatite grains to unambiguously tie them to their source regions. We demonstrate the capability of this new approach on several modern and Holocene river sand samples from the Himalayan orogen and determine, because of the large isotopic differences in the constituent tectonostratigraphic units, both the location and magnitude of long-term erosion. In agreement with previous studies we are able to show that in the Central and Eastern Himalaya long-term denudation is focussed within the High Himalayan Crystalline Series (HHCS) at average rates of not, vert, similar 2 mm/yr. Average long-term rates are similar in the Western Himalaya sampled by the Indus River and largely reflect erosional denudation of the Western Indian Himalaya and the Western Syntaxis (the Nanga Parbat Haramosh Massif and South Karakoram Metamorphic Complex). Notably, the Asian continent supplies significantly more apatites to the mouth of the Indus than they do to the Bengal delta. The ability to reconstruct the patterns of long-term erosion in the Himalaya using detrital apatites from a few samples collected from major transverse drainages provides confidence in the utility of this approach to examine the locations and magnitude of long-term erosion in the past
Bayesian errors-in-variables estimation of specific climate sensitivity
No full textEstimation of climate sensitivity is fundamental to assessing how global climate will warm as atmospheric CO2 concentration increases. Geological archives of environmental change provide insights into Earth's past climate, but the incomplete nature of paleoclimate reconstructions and their inherent uncertainties make estimation of climate sensitivity challenging. Thus, quantifying climate sensitivity and assessing how it changed through geological time requires statistical frameworks that can handle data uncertainties in a principled fashion. Here we demonstrate some of the hurdles to estimating climate sensitivity, with a focus on current statistical techniques that may underestimate both climate sensitivity and its associated uncertainty. To solve these issues, we present a Bayesian error-in-variables regression model, which can yield estimates of climate sensitivity without bias. The regression model is flexible and can account for data point uncertainties with a known parametric form. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by estimating specific climate sensitivity with uncertainty for the Eocene
Concurrent Pb–Hf isotope analysis of zircon by laser ablation multi-collector ICP-MS, with implications for the crustal evolution of Greenland and the Himalayas
No full textThe in situ Lu–Hf isotope analysis of zircon by laser ablation has emerged as a high-calibre tool for tackling
magmatic and crustal evolution. The strength of the approach lieswith the ability to target specific zircon growth
domains identified by imaging, and thus to unravel polyphase crystallisation histories. However, due to the
volume of material being sampled during analysis there remains the possibility of ablation-induced mixing
between Hf from domains of different age. Inaccurate Hf isotope ratios and spurious geological interpretations
could result. One approach to this problem involves dating the same volume ofmaterial analysed for Hf isotopes
by concurrently measuring 207Pb/206Pb ratios during ablation [Woodhead, J.D., Hergt, J.M., Shelley,M., Eggins, S.,
Kemp, R. 2004. Zircon Hf-isotope analysis with an excimer laser, depth profiling, ablation of complex geometries,
and concomitant age estimation. Chemical Geology 209, 121–135.]. This paper explores the viability of this dual
analysis by investigating complex zircons fromthree different geological contexts, detrital zircons in sedimentary
rocks, inherited zircons in granites, and zircons in metamorphosed Eo-Archaean TTG gneisses from Greenland.
The implications of the Greenland data for Archaean crustal evolution are discussed in the light of published
solution zircon Hf isotope datasets fromthese gneisses. Acase study of detrital zircons frommodern river sands in
the Himalayas highlights the potential of the technique for providing a rapid, cost-effective picture of crustal
evolution that should complement regional bulk rock studies
Calibration of the pH-δ11B and temperature-Mg/Li proxies in the long-lived high-latitude crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum compactum via controlled laboratory experiments
Full text linkA solid understanding of global oceanic change throughout Holocene time is needed to contextualize and interpret recent observations of rapid warming (Moore, 2016), ocean acidification (Popova et al., 2014; Qi et al., 2017), increasing meltwater input (Halfar et al., 2013; Notz and Stroeve, 2016) and circulation changes (Liu et al., 2017; Rahmstorf et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2016) in the Arctic and subarctic Oceans. Precisely reconstructing acidification and temperature variations throughout the Holocene will provide a vital context for interpreting current environmental changes and future climate projections in the region. However, existing paleoenvironmental reconstructions are sparse and uncertain, largely owing to limited availability of high fidelity paleoceanographic archives, such as marine carbonates, in high latitude waters. Coralline algae of the genus Clathromorphum have emerged as key candidates for reconstructing high-latitude environmental variability at annual to sub-annual resolution. Here, we present the first empirical calibrations of boron isotope-pH and Mg/Li-temperature relationships within the long-lived, crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum compactum. Calibration experiments were performed in triplicate, growing wild-collected specimens for four months at three controlled temperatures (6.4 – 12.4 oC) and four pCO2 conditions (352 - 3230 ppm), to test the effects of these environmental parameters on the isotopic and elemental composition of the algal skeleton. We find that boron isotopes within the skeleton of C. compactum (δ11Bcc) are well correlated with δ11B of seawater borate (δ11Βborate), defining the following equation: δ11Βcc (2σ) = 1.46 (0.06) δ11Βborate + 6.91 (0.72). This equation can be used to reconstruct δ11Βborate of the coralline alga’s ambient seawater, from which past seawater pH can be calculated. We also identified a strong correlation between skeletal Mg/Li ratio and seawater temperature, defined by the equation: Mg/Li (2σ) = 0.17 (0.02) temperature (oC) + 1.02 (0.16). Therefore, despite the strong biological control that this species appears to exert on calcification site pH (elevated 1.0-1.6 pH units above seawater pH, inferred from δ11Bcc > δ11Βborate), and the apparent relationship between skeletal extension rate and skeletal Li/Ca and Mg/Ca, the δ11Bcc and Mg/Li ratios of the coralline alga’s skeleton strongly and significantly respond to ambient seawater pH and temperature, respectively. These results support the use of δ11B and Mg/Li within C. compactum for pH and temperature reconstructions of northern high-latitude oceans
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