2019/05/15 by Jimin Yu, Laurie Menviel, Zhangdong Jin +11 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Marine and coastal ecosystems #Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10028-z
openalex publication_date 2019/05/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
Abstract During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ~20,000 years ago), the global ocean sequestered a large amount of carbon lost from the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere. Suppressed CO 2 outgassing from the Southern Ocean is the prevailing explanation for this carbon sequestration. By contrast, the North Atlantic Ocean—a major conduit for atmospheric CO 2 transport to the ocean interior via the overturning circulation—has received much less attention. Here we demonstrate that North Atlantic carbon pump efficiency during the LGM was almost doubled relative to the Holocene. This is based on a novel proxy approach to estimate air–sea CO 2 exchange signals using combined carbonate ion and nutrient reconstructions for multiple sediment cores from the North Atlantic. Our data indicate that in tandem with Southern Ocean processes, enhanced North Atlantic CO 2 absorption contributed to lowering ice-age atmospheric CO 2 .