The covariation of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) concentration and temperature in Antarctic ice-core records suggests a close link between CO(2) and climate during the Pleistocene ice ages. The role and relative importance of CO(2) in producing these climate changes remains unclear, however, in part because the ice-core deuterium record reflects local rather than global temperature. Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO(2) during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO(2) concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.

[1] A new model of global climate, ocean circulation, ecosystems, and biogeochemical cycling, including a fully coupled carbon cycle, is presented and evaluated. The model is consistent with multiple observational data sets from the past 50 years as well as with the observed warming of global surface air and sea temperatures during the last 150 years. It is applied to a simulation of the coming two millennia following a business-as-usual scenario of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions (SRES A2 until year 2100 and subsequent linear decrease to zero until year 2300, corresponding to a total release of 5100 GtC). Atmospheric CO 2 increases to a peak of more than 2000 ppmv near year 2300 (that is an airborne fraction of 72% of the emissions) followed by a gradual decline to $1700 ppmv at year 4000 (airborne fraction of 56%). Forty-four percent of the additional atmospheric CO 2 at year 4000 is due to positive carbon cycle-climate feedbacks. Global surface air warms by $10°C, sea ice melts back to 10% of its current area, and the circulation of the abyssal ocean collapses. Subsurface oxygen concentrations decrease, tripling the volume of suboxic water and quadrupling the global water column denitrification. We estimate 60 ppb increase in atmospheric N 2 O concentrations owing to doubling of its oceanic production, leading to a weak positive feedback and contributing about 0.24°C warming at year 4000. Global ocean primary production almost doubles by year 4000. Planktonic biomass increases at high latitudes and in the subtropics whereas it decreases at midlatitudes and in the tropics. In our model, which does not account for possible direct impacts of acidification on ocean biology, production of calcium carbonate in the surface ocean doubles, further increasing surface ocean and atmospheric pCO 2 . This represents a new positive feedback mechanism and leads to a strengthening of the positive interaction between climate change and the carbon cycle on a multicentennial to millennial timescale. Changes in ocean biology become important for the ocean carbon uptake after year 2600, and at year 4000 they account for 320 ppmv or 22% of the atmospheric CO 2 increase since the preindustrial era.

A new earth system climate model of intermediate complexity has been developed and its climatology compared to observations. The UVic Earth System Climate Model consists of a three-dimensional ocean general circulation model coupled to a thermodynamic/dynamic sea-ice model, an energy-moisture balance atmospheric model with dynamical feedbacks, and a thermomechanical land-ice model. In order to keep the model computationally efficient a reduced complexity atmosphere model is used. Atmospheric heat and freshwater transports are parametrized through Fickian diffusion, and precipitation is assumed to occur when the relative humidity is greater than 85%. Moisture transport can also be accomplished through advection if desired. Precipitation over land is assumed to return instantaneously to the ocean via one of 33 observed river drainage basins. Ice and snow albedo feedbacks are included in the coupled model by locally increasing the prescribed latitudinal profile of the planetary albedo. The atmospheric model includes a parametrization of water vapour/ planetary longwave feedbacks, although the radiative forcing associated with changes in atmospheric CO 2 is prescribed as a modification of the planetary longwave radiative flux. A specified lapse rate is used to reduce the surface temperature over land where there is topography. The model uses prescribed present-day winds in its climatology, although a dynamical wind feedback is included which exploits a latitudinally-varying empirical relationship between atmospheric surface temperature and density. The ocean component of the coupled model is based on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Modular Ocean Model 2.2, with a global resolution of 3.6°(zonal) by 1.8°(meridional) and 19 vertical levels, and includes an option for brine-rejection parametrization. The sea-ice component incorporates an elastic-viscous-plastic rheology to represent sea-ice dynamics and various options for the representation of sea-ice thermodynamics and thickness distribution. The systematic comparison of the coupled model with observations reveals good agreement, especially when moisture transport is accomplished through advection. Global warming simulations conducted using the model to explore the role of moisture advection reveal a climate sensitivity of 3.0°C for a doubling of CO 2 , in line with other more comprehensive coupled models. Moisture advection, together with the wind feedback, leads to a transient simulation in which the meridional overturning in the North Atlantic initially weakens, but is eventually re-established to its initial strength once the radiative forcing is held fixed, as found in many coupled atmosphere General Circulation Models (GCMs). This is in contrast to experiments in which moisture transport is accomplished through diffusion whereby the overturning is reestablished to a strength that is greater than its initial condition. When applied to the climate of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the model obtains tropical cooling (30°N-30°S), relative to the pr...

Episodic iceberg-discharge events from the Hudson Strait Ice Stream (HSIS) of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, referred to as Heinrich events, are commonly attributed to internal ice-sheet instabilities, but their systematic occurrence at the culmination of a large reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) indicates a climate control. We report Mg∕Ca data on benthic foraminifera from an intermediate-depth site in the northwest Atlantic and results from a climate-model simulation that reveal basin-wide subsurface warming at the same time as large reductions in the AMOC, with temperature increasing by approximately 2°C over a 1-2 kyr interval prior to a Heinrich event. In simulations with an ocean model coupled to a thermodynamically active ice shelf, the increase in subsurface temperature increases basal melt rate under an ice shelf fronting the HSIS by a factor of approximately 6. By analogy with recent observations in Antarctica, the resulting ice-shelf loss and attendant HSIS acceleration would produce a Heinrich event. (2), their occurrence at the culmination of a large reduction in the Atlantic meridional ocean circulation (AMOC) suggests a possible trigger by climate (3, 4). Models suggest that ocean responses to an AMOC reduction might destabilize the HSIS grounding line and trigger Heinrich events either through dynamic and steric sea-level rise or warming of intermediate-depth (hereafter subsurface) waters causing destabilization of ice shelves and attendant HSIS surging (4-6). Grounding lines, however, are thought to be stable to the decimeter-scale sea-level rise associated with a reduced AMOC (7). Moreover, evidence for subsurface warming remains widely debated (8-10), and the relationship between ocean temperature and total iceshelf mass loss from basal melting is sensitive to the geometry and ocean setting of the specific ice shelf being considered (11).Our study is based on core EW9302-2JPC (1,251 m, 48°47.70′ N, 45°05.09′W) which, according to climate-model simulations, is at a depth and latitude that is ideal for monitoring subsurface warming associated with a reduction in the AMOC (Fig. 1) (4, 12). Previous work on this core identified ice-rafted detrital carbonate layers that represent Heinrich events ( Fig. 2A), with associated changes in benthic faunas and the δ 18 O of their carbonate tests that suggested intrusions of a relatively warm water mass coincident with the events (8). However, because the temperature transfer function for the benthic faunas is unknown, and ice-volume and hydrographic changes can mask the temperature signal in the δ 18 O of calcite, the inferred temperature changes remain poorly constrained.To further evaluate variability in bottom water temperature (BWT) at this site, we measured Mg∕Ca in benthic foraminiferal calcite associated with the four Heinrich events (H1, H3, H5a, and H6) for which sufficient numbers of foraminifera existed in this core. Considering analytical and calibration uncertainties, we calculate an error of 1.3°C for our Mg∕Ca-...

Abstract. Analysis of observations and sensitivity experiments with a new three-dimensional global model of stable carbon isotope cycling elucidate processes that control the distribution of δ13C of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the contemporary and preindustrial ocean. Biological fractionation and the sinking of isotopically light δ13C organic matter from the surface into the interior ocean leads to low δ13CDIC values at depths and in high latitude surface waters and high values in the upper ocean at low latitudes with maxima in the subtropics. Air–sea gas exchange has two effects. First, it acts to reduce the spatial gradients created by biology. Second, the associated temperature-dependent fractionation tends to increase (decrease) δ13CDIC values of colder (warmer) water, which generates gradients that oppose those arising from biology. Our model results suggest that both effects are similarly important in influencing surface and interior δ13CDIC distributions. However, since air–sea gas exchange is slow in the modern ocean, the biological effect dominates spatial δ13CDIC gradients both in the interior and at the surface, in contrast to conclusions from some previous studies. Calcium carbonate cycling, pH dependency of fractionation during air–sea gas exchange, and kinetic fractionation have minor effects on δ13CDIC. Accumulation of isotopically light carbon from anthropogenic fossil fuel burning has decreased the spatial variability of surface and deep δ13CDIC since the industrial revolution in our model simulations. Analysis of a new synthesis of δ13CDIC measurements from years 1990 to 2005 is used to quantify preformed and remineralized contributions as well as the effects of biology and air–sea gas exchange. The model reproduces major features of the observed large-scale distribution of δ13CDIC as well as the individual contributions and effects. Residual misfits are documented and analyzed. Simulated surface and subsurface δ13CDIC are influenced by details of the ecosystem model formulation. For example, inclusion of a simple parameterization of iron limitation of phytoplankton growth rates and temperature-dependent zooplankton grazing rates improves the agreement with δ13CDIC observations and satellite estimates of phytoplankton growth rates and biomass, suggesting that δ13C can also be a useful test of ecosystem models.

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The primary impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on marine biogeochemical cycles predicted so far include ocean acidification, global warming induced shifts in biogeographical provinces, and a possible negative feedback on atmospheric CO2 levels by CO2‐fertilized biological production. Here we report a new potentially significant impact on the oxygen‐minimum zones of the tropical oceans. Using a model of global climate, ocean circulation, and biogeochemical cycling, we extrapolate mesocosm‐derived experimental findings of a pCO2‐sensitive increase in biotic carbon‐to‐nitrogen drawdown to the global ocean. For a simulation run from the onset of the industrial revolution until A.D. 2100 under a “business‐as‐usual” scenario for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, our model predicts a negative feedback on atmospheric CO2 levels, which amounts to 34 Gt C by the end of this century. While this represents a small alteration of the anthropogenic perturbation of the carbon cycle, the model results reveal a dramatic 50% increase in the suboxic water volume by the end of this century in response to the respiration of excess organic carbon formed at higher CO2 levels. This is a significant expansion of the marine “dead zones” with severe implications not only for all higher life forms but also for oxygen‐sensitive nutrient recycling and, hence, for oceanic nutrient inventories.

A low-order physical-biogeochemical climate model was used to project atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming for scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The North Atlantic thermohaline circulation weakens in all global warming simulations and collapses at high levels of carbon dioxide. Projected changes in the marine carbon cycle have a modest impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide. Compared with the control, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 4 percent at year 2100 and 20 percent at year 2500. The reduction in ocean carbon uptake can be mainly explained by sea surface warming. The projected changes of the marine biological cycle compensate the reduction in downward mixing of anthropogenic carbon, except when the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation collapses.