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Science 13 May 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5724, pp. 1003 - 1006
DOI: 10.1126/science.1108696
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Reports

Glacial/Interglacial Changes in Subarctic North Pacific Stratification

S. L. Jaccard,1* G. H. Haug,2 D. M. Sigman,3 T. F. Pedersen,4 H. R. Thierstein,1 U. Röhl5

Since the first evidence of low algal productivity during ice ages in the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean was discovered, there has been debate as to whether it was associated with increased polar ocean stratification or with sea-ice cover, shortening the productive season. The sediment concentration of biogenic barium at Ocean Drilling Program site 882 indicates low algal productivity during ice ages in the Subarctic North Pacific as well. Site 882 is located southeast of the summer sea-ice extent even during glacial maxima, ruling out sea-ice–driven light limitation and supporting stratification as the explanation, with implications for the glacial cycles of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

1 Department of Earth Sciences, Sonneggstrasse 5, ETHZ, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
2 Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
3 Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
4 School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
5 DFG Research Center for Ocean Margins, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jaccard{at}erdw.ethz.ch

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Marine Radiocarbon Evidence for the Mechanism of Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise.
T. M. Marchitto, S. J. Lehman, J. D. Ortiz, J. Fluckiger, and A. van Geen (2007)
Science 316, 1456-1459
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