-
- OS33C-1139: Testing Assumptions in the Modeling of Radiocarbon in Ocean Biogeochemical Models
-
Board 1139‚ Hall EFG (Poster Hall)NOLA CC
Author(s):Generic 'disconnected' Message
Nikita Tournebise, University of California Santa Barbara (First Author, Presenting Author)
Timothy DeVries, University of California Santa Barbara
Kana Yamamoto, University of California, Santa Barbara
Heather Graven, Imperial College London
Nabir Mamnun, Imperial College London
Increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are changing the Earth’s climate. Oceans absorb a lot of this excess carbon through gas exchange at the sea surface, subsequently storing it in deeper waters. To better understand current and future changes in climate, it is necessary to know the rate at which this exchange occurs, and how long carbon dioxide will remain in the ocean. Radiocarbon, a naturally occurring isotope of carbon-12, is an excellent tool for quantifying air-sea fluxes and ocean circulation. Additionally, it provides insights on past ocean states – which translates to past climatological conditions. Various factors influence its distribution in the oceans; to study the aforementioned problems, we have to devise the simplest yet sufficiently accurate oceanic radiocarbon model. Here, we investigated the impact on radiocarbon’s distribution of: biological effects, evaporation and precipitation, initial atmospheric conditions, and how radiocarbon is formulated relative tototal carbon. We have found that initial atmospheric conditions had the greatest influence, whereas biological and evaporative effects could be reasonably omitted without compromising model performance. The simplest formulation, which characterizes radiocarbon as a simple ratio to total carbon, can be used in future studies on air-sea gas exchange or ocean circulation without significant added biases.
Scientific DisciplineSuggested ItinerariesNeighborhoodType
Enter Note
Go to previous page in this tab
Session
