Equatorial Pacific seawater pCO2 variability since the last glacial period

Kaoru Kubota; Yusuke Yokoyama; Tsuyoshi Ishikawa; Takuya Sagawa; Minoru Ikehara; Toshitsugu Yamazaki

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-49739-0

Equatorial Pacific seawater pCO₂ variability since the last glacial period

Sci Rep. 2019 Sep 25;9(1):13814. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-49739-0.

Authors

Kaoru Kubota¹, Yusuke Yokoyama², Tsuyoshi Ishikawa³, Takuya Sagawa⁴, Minoru Ikehara⁵, Toshitsugu Yamazaki²

Affiliations

¹ Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Nankoku, Japan. kaoryu0129@gmail.com.
² Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan.
³ Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Nankoku, Japan.
⁴ Institute of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.
⁵ Center for Advanced Marine Core Research, Kochi University, Nankoku, Japan.

Abstract

The ocean may have played a central role in the atmospheric pCO₂ rise during the last deglaciation. However, evidence on where carbon was exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere in this period is still lacking, hampering our understanding of global carbon cycle on glacial-interglacial timescales. Here we report a new surface seawater pCO₂ reconstruction for the western equatorial Pacific Ocean based on boron isotope analysis-a seawater pCO₂ proxy-using two species of near-surface dwelling foraminifera from the same marine sediment core. The results indicate that the region remained a modest CO₂ sink throughout the last deglaciation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't