Sack Lunch Seminar (SLS)

A Southern Ocean circulation event during a past warm climate

Abstract: Proxies in Southern Ocean sediments indicate weakened renewal of deep waters during a period of greater than present warmth, 127,000 years ago. Such a change in circulation may have significant implications for predicting how atmospheric CO2 will respond to future climate scenarios on millennial timescales. In this talk, I'll review these new observations of the paleo-stagnation event and discuss some implicated causes and mechanisms including the bipolar seesaw and melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. I’ll also give a brief overview of some future work on various other isotopic applications in marine biogeochemistry.