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Carbon isotope constraints

Carbon isotope constraints

Members of PAGES' former working group Ocean Circulation and Carbon Cycling (OC3) have published a new paper on carbon isotope model data comparison in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Juan Muglia and Andreas Schmittner present a detailed analysis of the skill of carbon isotopes to constrain past ocean circulation configurations in their paper "Carbon isotope constraints on glacial Atlantic meridional overturning: Strength vs depth".

The duo find that global compilations of carbon isotope reconstructions are able to constrain the depth of the glacial Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in ocean models. However, circulation rates can only be constrained when comparing model results with reconstructions at locations where there exist isotope data of high vertical resolution. The number of such sites is very limited, evidencing the need for models to include other possible tracers of past circulation rates.

> Access the paper here

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