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Radiocarbon age of waters in the deep Atlantic revisited
Author(s) -
Broecker Wallace S.,
Virgilio Alex,
Peng TsungHung
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/90gl02707
Subject(s) - radiocarbon dating , atmosphere (unit) , geology , environmental science , period (music) , oceanography , paleontology , meteorology , geography , physics , acoustics
We use a simple box model to evaluate the impact of temporal changes of the atmosphere's 14 C/C on ventilation fluxes for the deep Atlantic calculated from radiocarbon measurements. The conclusion is that despite the fact that over the 300 year period from 1650 to 1950 the atmosphere's radiocarbon content declined at the same rate as radiocarbon decays, this temporal change has a relatively small impact (10–15%) on radiocarbon‐based estimates of the ventilation rate of the deep Atlantic. The reason is that the radiocarbon content of the source waters for deep Atlantic are reasonably well buffered against changes in atmospheric 14 C/C.