Alexander M. Piotrowski

Escape of methane gas from the seabed along the West Spitsbergen continental margin

More than 250 plumes of gas bubbles have been discovered emanating from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin, in a depth range of 150-400 m, at and above the present upper limit of the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Some of the plumes extend upward to within 50 m of the sea surface. The gas is predominantly methane. Warming of the northward-flowing West Spitsbergen current by 1°C over the last thirty years is likely to have increased the release of methane from the seabed by reducing the extent of the GHSZ, causing the liberation of methane from decomposing hydrate. If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of Teragrams of methane per year could be released into the ocean.

Evolution of Ocean Temperature and Ice Volume Through the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition

Cycling Down The Mid-Pleistocene Transition, which lasted from approximately 1.25 million to 700 thousand years ago, was a period during which the dominant periodicity of Earths climate cycles inexplicably changed from 41 thousand to 100 thousand years. This change is clearly apparent in the oxygen isotopic composition of many calcifying marine organisms, but changes in both ice volume and temperature affect the signal, and so exactly what the signal means has remained unclear. Elderfield et al. (p. 704; see the Perspective by Clark) separated these two effects by measuring both the oxygen isotopic makeup and the Mg/Ca (a proxy that reflects changes in temperature only) of certain benthic foraminifera. The findings reveal the contributions of ice volume and temperature to glacial cycles, suggest when and why the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition occurred, and clarify how carbon is lost from the ocean-atmosphere during deglaciations but also changes because of ocean circulation. The effects of changes in ice volume and ocean temperature during the mid-Pleistocene transition have now been resolved. Earth’s climate underwent a fundamental change between 1250 and 700 thousand years ago, the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), when the dominant periodicity of climate cycles changed from 41 thousand to 100 thousand years in the absence of substantial change in orbital forcing. Over this time, an increase occurred in the amplitude of change of deep-ocean foraminiferal oxygen isotopic ratios, traditionally interpreted as defining the main rhythm of ice ages although containing large effects of changes in deep-ocean temperature. We have separated the effects of decreasing temperature and increasing global ice volume on oxygen isotope ratios. Our results suggest that the MPT was initiated by an abrupt increase in Antarctic ice volume 900 thousand years ago. We see no evidence of a pattern of gradual cooling, but near-freezing temperatures occur at every glacial maximum.

Synchronous Deglacial Overturning and Water Mass Source Changes

The Depths of the Changes Over the course of the past glacial cycle, there have been two major types of rapid, large climate warming events: shorter-lived warm intervals lasting on the order of 1000 years and the last glacial-interglacial transition. Although both involved dramatic changes in large-scale ocean circulation, the extent to which those changes were similar is unclear. Roberts et al. (p. 75) analyzed the neodymium isotopic composition of the Fe-Mn oxide coatings of planktonic foraminifera and reconstructed patterns of Atlantic Ocean circulation during Heinrich event 1, a rapid global climate fluctuation about 14,000 years ago involving the destruction of Northern Hemisphere ice shelves and the last deglaciation. While both the source of deep water and the whole-ocean overturning rate shifted rapidly and synchronously during the last deglacial transition, only upper ocean circulation strength was affected during Heinrich event 1. Large-scale ocean circulation changed in different ways during a millennial-scale climate event. Understanding changes in ocean circulation during the last deglaciation is crucial to unraveling the dynamics of glacial-interglacial and millennial climate shifts. We used neodymium isotope measurements on postdepositional iron-manganese oxide coatings precipitated on planktonic foraminifera to reconstruct changes in the bottom water source of the deep western North Atlantic at the Bermuda Rise. Comparison of our deep water source record with overturning strength proxies shows that both the deep water mass source and the overturning rate shifted rapidly and synchronously during the last deglacial transition. In contrast, any freshwater perturbation caused by Heinrich event 1 could have only affected shallow overturning. These findings show how changes in upper-ocean overturning associated with millennial-scale events differ from those associated with whole-ocean deglacial climate events.

Testing the extraction of past seawater Nd isotopic composition from North Atlantic deep sea sediments and foraminifera.

Neodymium isotopes provide a paleoceanographic proxy for past deep water circulation and local weathering changes and have been measured on various authigenic marine sediment components, including fish teeth, ferromanganese oxides extracted by acid-reductive leaching, cleaned foraminifera, and foraminifera with Fe-Mn oxide coatings. Here we compare Nd isotopic measurements obtained from ferromanganese oxides leached from bulk sediments and planktonic foraminifera, as well as from oxidatively-reductively cleaned foraminiferal shells from sediment cores in the North Atlantic. Sedimentary volcanic ash contributes a significant fraction of the Nd when the ferro-manganese (Fe-Mn) oxide coatings are leached from bulk sediments. Reductive leachates of marine sediments from North Atlantic core tops near Iceland, or directly downstream from Iceland-Scotland Overflow Waters, record ɛNd values that are significantly higher than seawater, indicating that volcanic material is easily leached by acid-reductive methods. The ɛNd values from sites more distal to Iceland are similar to modern seawater values, showing little contamination from Iceland-derived volcanogenic material. In all comparisons, core top planktonic foraminifera ɛNd values more closely approximate modern deep seawater than the bulk sediment reductive leached value suggesting that the foraminifera provide a route toward quantifying the Nd isotopic signature of deep North Atlantic water masses.

North Atlantic ocean circulation and abrupt climate change during the last glaciation

An ocean of climate impacts Large decreases in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation accompanied every one of the cold Northern Hemispheric stadial events that occurred during the heart of the last glacial period. These events, lasting on average around 1000 years each, have long been thought to result from changes in deep ocean circulation. Henry et al. used a suite of geochemical proxies from marine sediments to show that reductions in the export of northern deep waters occurred before and during stadial periods (see the Perspective by Schmittner). This observation firmly establishes the role of ocean circulation as a cause of abrupt glacial climate change during that interval. Science, this issue p. 470; see also p. 445 Deep ocean circulation changes preceded and accompanied the millennial cold climate events of the past ice age. The most recent ice age was characterized by rapid and hemispherically asynchronous climate oscillations, whose origin remains unresolved. Variations in oceanic meridional heat transport may contribute to these repeated climate changes, which were most pronounced during marine isotope stage 3, the glacial interval 25 thousand to 60 thousand years ago. We examined climate and ocean circulation proxies throughout this interval at high resolution in a deep North Atlantic sediment core, combining the kinematic tracer protactinium/thorium (Pa/Th) with the deep water-mass tracer, epibenthic δ13C. These indicators suggest reduced Atlantic overturning circulation during every cool northern stadial, with the greatest reductions during episodic Hudson Strait iceberg discharges, while sharp northern warming followed reinvigorated overturning. These results provide direct evidence for the ocean’s persistent, central role in abrupt glacial climate change.

North Atlantic Deep Water Production during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Changes in deep ocean ventilation are commonly invoked as the primary cause of lower glacial atmospheric CO2. The water mass structure of the glacial deep Atlantic Ocean and the mechanism by which it may have sequestered carbon remain elusive. Here we present neodymium isotope measurements from cores throughout the Atlantic that reveal glacial–interglacial changes in water mass distributions. These results demonstrate the sustained production of North Atlantic Deep Water under glacial conditions, indicating that southern-sourced waters were not as spatially extensive during the Last Glacial Maximum as previously believed. We demonstrate that the depleted glacial δ13C values in the deep Atlantic Ocean cannot be explained solely by water mass source changes. A greater amount of respired carbon, therefore, must have been stored in the abyssal Atlantic during the Last Glacial Maximum. We infer that this was achieved by a sluggish deep overturning cell, comprised of well-mixed northern- and southern-sourced waters.

Millennial‐scale propagation of Atlantic deep waters to the glacial Southern Ocean

The compilation of changes in the magnetic properties at various sites distributed along the path of the deepwater mass in North Atlantic shows large-amplitude short-term fluctuations reflecting changes in the strength of the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). These changes, which suggest a two-mode deep glacial circulation dynamic, are perfectly concurrent with air temperature changes over Greenland. They also share a similar pattern with those reported in the Nd isotope ratios from the deep Cape Basin during the same time period. Greenland interstadials were accompanied by increased flow speed of NADW and relatively more NADW reaching the Southern Ocean, while during Greenland stadials and Heinrich events, both the North Atlantic flow speed of NADW and its presence in the South Atlantic were reduced. It is demonstrated that both proxies are tracing the same water mass, and their reliability for monitoring changes in the deepwater circulation is therefore clearly established. After using the climatically independent geomagnetic assisted stratigraphy to put the Northern and Southern Hemisphere records on the same age scale, the South Atlantic record appears to lag changes in North Atlantic flow speeds by approximately 860 ± 220 years during the most prominent and best defined cycles (interstadials 12 and 8). Although future work is needed, this significant offset provides a first observation and tentative quantification of the time needed for glacial northern component water to mix downward and to flow from the North to the South Atlantic.

Magnetic unmixing of first-order reversal curve diagrams using principal component analysis

We describe a quantitative magnetic unmixing method based on principal component analysis (PCA) of first-order reversal curve (FORC) diagrams. For PCA we resample FORC distributions on grids that capture diagnostic signatures of single-domain (SD), pseudo-single-domain (PSD), and multi-domain (MD) magnetite, as well as of minerals such as hematite. Individual FORC diagrams are recast as linear combinations of end-member (EM) FORC diagrams, located at user-defined positions in PCA space. The EM selection is guided by constraints derived from physical modeling and imposed by data scatter. We investigate temporal variations of two EMs in bulk North Atlantic sediment cores collected from the Rockall Trough and the Iberian Continental Margin. Sediments from each site contain a mixture of magnetosomes and granulometrically distinct detrital magnetite. We also quantify the spatial variation of three EM components (a coarse silt-sized MD component, a fine silt-sized PSD component, and a mixed clay-sized component containing both SD magnetite and hematite) in surficial sediments along the flow path of the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). These samples were separated into granulometric fractions, which helped constrain EM definition. PCA-based unmixing reveals systematic variations in EM relative abundance as a function of distance along NADW flow. Finally, we apply PCA to the combined dataset of Rockall Trough and NADW sediments, which can be recast as a four-EM mixture, providing enhanced discrimination between components. Our method forms the foundation of a general solution to the problem of unmixing multi-component magnetic mixtures, a fundamental task of rock magnetic studies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Interhemispheric controls on deep ocean circulation and carbon chemistry during the last two glacial cycles

Changes in ocean circulation structure, together with biological cycling, have been proposed for trapping carbon in the deep ocean during glacial periods of the Late Pleistocene, but uncertainty remains in the nature and timing of deep ocean circulation changes through glacial cycles. In this study, we use neodymium (Nd) and carbon isotopes from a deep Indian Ocean sediment core to reconstruct water mass mixing and carbon cycling in Circumpolar Deep Water over the past 250 thousand years, a period encompassing two full glacial cycles and including a range of orbital forcing. Building on recent studies, we use reductive sediment leaching supported by measurements on isolated phases (foraminifera and fish teeth) in order to obtain a robust seawater Nd isotope reconstruction. Neodymium isotopes record a changing North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) component in the deep Indian Ocean that bears a striking resemblance to Northern Hemisphere climate records. In particular, we identify both an approximately in‐phase link to Northern Hemisphere summer insolation in the precession band and a longer‐term reduction of NADW contributions over the course of glacial cycles. The orbital timescale changes may record the influence of insolation forcing, for example via NADW temperature and/or Antarctic sea ice extent, on deep stratification and mixing in the Southern Ocean, leading to isolation of the global deep oceans from an NADW source during times of low Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. That evidence could support an active role for changing deep ocean circulation in carbon storage during glacial inceptions. However, mid‐depth water mass mixing and deep ocean carbon storage were largely decoupled within glacial periods, and a return to an interglacial‐like circulation state during marine isotope stage (MIS) 6.5 was accompanied by only minor changes in atmospheric CO2. Although a gradual reduction of NADW export through glacial periods may have produced slow climate feedbacks linked to the growth of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, carbon cycling in the glacial ocean was instead more strongly linked to Southern Ocean processes.

Antarctic intermediate water circulation in the South Atlantic over the past 25,000 years

Antarctic Intermediate Water is an essential limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation that redistributes heat and nutrients within the Atlantic Ocean. Existing reconstructions have yielded conflicting results on the history of Antarctic Intermediate Water penetration into the Atlantic across the most recent glacial termination. In this study we present leachate, foraminiferal, and detrital neodymium isotope data from three intermediate-depth cores collected from the southern Brazil margin in the South Atlantic covering the past 25 kyr. These results reveal that strong chemical leaching following decarbonation does not extract past seawater neodymium composition in this location. The new foraminiferal records reveal no changes in seawater Nd isotopes during abrupt Northern Hemisphere cold events at these sites. We therefore conclude that there is no evidence for greater incursion of Antarctic Intermediate Water into the South Atlantic during either the Younger Dryas or Heinrich Stadial 1. We do, however, observe more radiogenic Nd isotope values in the intermediate-depth South Atlantic during the mid-Holocene. This radiogenic excursion coincides with evidence for a southward shift in the Southern Hemisphere westerlies that may have resulted in a greater entrainment of radiogenic Pacific-sourced water during intermediate water production in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. Our intermediate-depth records show similar values to a deglacial foraminiferal Nd isotope record from the deep South Atlantic during the Younger Dryas but are clearly distinct during the Last Glacial Maximum and Heinrich Stadial 1, demonstrating that the South Atlantic remained chemically stratified during Heinrich Stadial 1.