title: The Southern Ocean's role in carbon exchange during the last deglaciation.
abstract: Changes in the upwelling and degassing of carbon from the Southern Ocean form one of the leading hypotheses for the cause of glacial-interglacial changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. We present a 25,000-year-long Southern Ocean radiocarbon record reconstructed from deep-sea corals, which shows radiocarbon-depleted waters during the glacial period and through the early deglaciation. This depletion and associated deep stratification disappeared by ~14.6 ka (thousand years ago), consistent with the transfer of carbon from the deep ocean to the surface ocean and atmosphere via a Southern Ocean ventilation event. Given this evidence for carbon exchange in the Southern Ocean, we show that existing deep-ocean radiocarbon records from the glacial period are sufficiently depleted to explain the ~190 per mil drop in atmospheric radiocarbon between ~17 and 14.5 ka.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA. aburke@whoi.edu
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.forename: Laura F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Robinson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000737:chemistry*; D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry*; D057486:Carbon Cycle; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis*; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry; D046448:Ice Cover; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry*; D013995:Time
chemical_list: D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D002245:Carbon Dioxide