Life Sciences Commons^™

Ventilation Time Scales Of The North Atlantic Subtropical Cell Revealed By Coral Radiocarbon From The Cape Verde Islands, Alvaro Fernandez, Thomas J. Lapen, Rasmus Andreasen, Peter K. Swart, Christopher D. White, Brad E. Rosenheim

Marine Science Faculty Publications

We present coral- and sclerosponge-based reconstructions of the ¹⁴C content in North Atlantic dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) during the last ~100 years from the subtropical cells (STCs). These waters are sensitive to the dynamics of the shallow overturning meridional circulation that transports heat and water masses from the subtropics to the tropics. We use these records to investigate the circulation patterns of the off-equatorial upwelling regions of the STCs, which are not well understood. Coral and sclerosponge skeletons provide long time series of ocean DIC ¹⁴C content, a tracer of oceanic circulation, effectively extending the observational record back …