The Role of Biological Production in Pleistocene Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Variations and the Nitrogen Isotope Dynamics of the Southern Ocean.
Abstract
This dissertation contributes to the search for a cause of glacial/interglacial variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The hypotheses addressed involve changes in low and high-latitude biological export production. A modelling exercise demonstrates that the paleoceanographic record of calcite preservation places constraints on hypothesized changes in low latitude biological production. The model results indicate that large, production-driven changes in the depth of the calcite saturation horizon during the last ice age would have caused a similar deepening of the calcite lysocline, even when the effect of sediment respiration-driven dissolution is considered. Such a large glacial lysocline deepening is not evident on an ocean-average basis. The results indicate very few mechanisms by which low latitude production could have driven Pleisotocene carbon dioxide variations, generally arguing against a low latitude cause for these variations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA342811
Entities
People
- Daniel M. Sigman
Organizations
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution