Southern Ocean overturning, export production and climate variability over the past 1 Myr

Recently developed XRF core-scanning methods permit paleoceanographic reconstructions on time-scales similar to ice core temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements. We have investigated distribution of carbonate and biogenic barium (bioBa) - a proxy for integrated organic carbon export - in a sedimentary archive retrieved from the deep South Atlantic (ODP 1094, 53°S, 6°E, 2807 m) covering the past 1 Myr. These measurements are complemented with high-resolution, 230Th-normalized opal, bioBa and chlorin flux determinations spanning the last 150 kyrs. Our multi-proxy approach reveals that export production and biogenic carbonate preservation were tightly linked to atmospheric pCO2 reconstructions over the last 1 Myr. In particular, lukewarm interglacials (i.e. MIS 13-19) show generally lower organic matter export and reduced carbonate preservation when compared to more recent interglacials. This supports the critical contribution of Southern Ocean deglacial upwelling to modulate the partitioning of CO2 between the ocean interior and the atmosphere over the last million years, and immediately suggests that the moderate pCO2 increases during the lukewarm interglacials were due to a reduced dynamic range of Southern Ocean overturning. Changes in the vertical structure of the Southern Ocean water-column do not only prove to be crucial for the transitions from glacial to interglacial climate states. The decrease in upwelling following peak interglacial conditions leads the climate system to progressively converge towards colder, glacial conditions. Once a pCO2 threshold value of about 225 ppmv is reached, export production tends to stabilize around very low values, consistent with more strongly stratified conditions. This threshold also marks the abrupt inception of iron-rich mineral dust generation and deposition downwind of major South American dust sources, thereby catalyzing export production in the Subantarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean, to the north of ODP site 1094. New evidence from ODP site 1090 (42°S, 9°E, 3700 m) shows that iron fertilization in the SAZ would have permitted to sequester additional remineralized carbon in the ocean interior, forcing the climate system to reach full glacial conditions. This mechanism was only effective when the Southern Ocean lid was already sealed, precluding the sequestered CO2 to evade through the Antarctic valve. The threshold persisted throughout the lukewarm interval, suggesting that processes taking place in the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean were responsible for the observed reduced interglacial pCO2 levels.