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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Unraveling the Unseen Players in the Ocean - A Field Guide to Water Chemistry and Marine Microbiology
Published on: November 5, 2014
Temporal relationships of carbon cycling and ocean circulation at glacial boundaries
Alexander M Piotrowski1, Steven L Goldstein, Sidney R Hemming
1Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA. apio04@esc.cam.ac.uk
Abstract:
Evidence from high-sedimentation-rate South Atlantic deep-sea cores indicates that global and Southern Ocean carbon budget shifts preceded thermohaline circulation changes during the last ice age initiation and termination and that these were preceded by ice-sheet growth and retreat, respectively. No consistent lead-lag relationships are observed during abrupt millennial warming events during the last ice age, allowing for the possibility that ocean circulation triggered some millenial climate changes. At the major glacial-interglacial transitions, the global carbon budget and thermohaline ocean circulation responded sequentially to the climate changes that forced the growth and decline of continental ice sheets.
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