title: Global pulses of organic carbon burial in deep-sea sediments during glacial maxima.
abstract: The burial of organic carbon in marine sediments removes carbon dioxide from the ocean-atmosphere pool, provides energy to the deep biosphere, and on geological timescales drives the oxygenation of the atmosphere. Here we quantify natural variations in the burial of organic carbon in deep-sea sediments over the last glacial cycle. Using a new data compilation of hundreds of sediment cores, we show that the accumulation rate of organic carbon in the deep sea was consistently higher (50%) during glacial maxima than during interglacials. The spatial pattern and temporal progression of the changes suggest that enhanced nutrient supply to parts of the surface ocean contributed to the glacial burial pulses, with likely additional contributions from more efficient transfer of organic matter to the deep sea and better preservation of organic matter due to reduced oxygen exposure. These results demonstrate a pronounced climate sensitivity for this global carbon cycle sink.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geological Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.|Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada H3A 2A7.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Cartapanis
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada H3A 2A7.|School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA.|Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1565, USA.
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bianchi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geological Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Samuel L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Jaccard
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada H3A 2A7.|Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA), 08010 Barcelona, Spain.|Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals and Department of Mathematics, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 08193 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Eric D
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4476-4232
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Galbraith