The seawater carbon inventory at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

ABSTRACT: The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (55.6 Mya) was a geologically rapid carbon-release event that is considered the closest natural analog to anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Recent work has used boron-based proxies in planktic foraminifera to characterize the extent of surface-ocean acidification that occurred during the event. However, seawater acidity alone provides an incomplete constraint on the nature and source of carbon release. Here, we apply previously undescribed culture calibrations for the B/Ca proxy in planktic foraminifera and use them to calculate relative changes in seawater-dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentration, surmising that Pacific surface-ocean DIC increased by [Formula: see text] µmol/kg during the peak-PETM. Making reasonable assumptions for

SUBMITTER: Haynes LL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7533689 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature