Search

Using new and published marine fossil radiocarbon (14C/C) measurements, a tracer uniquely sensitive to circulation and air-sea gas exchange, we establish several benchmarks for Atlantic, Southern, and Pacific deep-sea circulation and ventilation since the last ice age. We find the most 14C-depleted water in glacial Pacific bottom depths, rather than the mid-depths as they are today, which is best explained by a slowdown in glacial deep-sea overturning in addition to a "flipped" glacial Pacific overturning configuration. These observations cannot be produced by changes in air-sea gas exchange alone, and they underscore the major role for changes in the overturning circulation for glacial deep-sea carbon storage in the vast Pacific abyss and the concomitant drawdown of atmospheric CO2.

[Figure: see text].

We analyze an optimized model of the global silicon cycle embedded in a data-assimilated steady ocean circulation. Biological uptake is modeled by conditionally restoring silicic acid in the euphotic zone to observed concentrations where the modeled concentrations exceed the observational climatology. An equivalent linear model is formulated to which Green-function-based transport diagnostics are applied. We find that the models' opal export through 133 m depth is 166 ± 24 Tmol Si/yr, with the Southern Ocean (SO) providing ∼70% of this export, ∼50% of which dissolves above 2000 m depth. The global-scale gradients of the opal dissolution rate are primarily meridional, while the global-scale gradients of phosphate remineralization are primarily vertical. The mean depth of the temperature-dependent silicic-acid regeneration reaches 2300 m in the SO, compared to 600 m for phosphate remineralization. Silicic acid is stripped out of the euphotic zone far more efficiently than phosphate, with only (34 ± 5)% of the global silicic-acid inventory being preformed, compared to (61 ± 7)% for phosphate. Subantarctic and tropical waters contribute most of the ocean's regenerated silicic acid, while Antarctic waters provide most of the preformed silicic acid. About half of the global silicic-acid inventory is trapped in transport paths connecting successive SO utilizations, with silicic acid last utilized in the SO having only a (5 ± 2)% chance of being next utilized outside the SO. This trapping depletes subantarctic mode waters of silicic acid relative to phosphate, which has a (44 ± 2)% probability of escaping successive SO utilization.

We present a data-assimilated model of the ocean's phosphorus cycle that is constrained by climatological phosphate, temperature, salinity, sea-surface height, surface heat and freshwater fluxes, as well as chlorofluorocarbon-11(CFC-11) and natural Δ14C. Export production is estimated to be 5.8±2.0×1012 mol P/yr of which (26±6)% originates in the Southern Ocean (SO) south of 40°S. The biological pump efficiency, defined as the proportion of the ocean's phosphate inventory that is regenerated, is (39±7)%. Dividing the SO south of 40°S into a sub-Antarctic zone (SANTZ) and an Antarctic zone (ANTZ) separated by the latitude of maximum Ekman divergence, we estimate that the SANTZ and ANTZ account, respectively, for (23±5)% and (3±1)% of global export production, (17±4)% and (3±1)% of the regenerated nutrient inventory, and (31±1)% and (43±5)% of the preformed nutrient inventory. Idealized SO nutrient depletion experiments reveal a large-scale transfer of nutrients into circumpolar and deep waters and from the preformed to the regenerated pool. In accord with the concept of the biogeochemical divide, we find that nutrient drawdown in the ANTZ is more effective than in the SANTZ for increasing the efficiency of the biological pump, while having a smaller impact on production in regions north of 40°S. Complete SO nutrient drawdown would allow the biological pump to operate at 94% efficiency by short circuiting the transport of nutrients in northward Ekman currents, leading to a trapping of nutrients in circumpolar and deep waters that would decrease production outside the SO by approximately 44% while increasing it in the SO by more than 725%.