Bibliography - T. Blunier
- Blunier, T., B. Barnett, Michael Bender, and M. B. Hendricks, 2002: Biological oxygen productivity during the last 60,000 years from triple oxygen isotope measurements. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 16(3), doi:10.1029/2001GB001460
[ Abstract ]The oxygen isotope signature of atmospheric O2 is linked to the isotopic signature of
seawater (H2O) through photosynthesis and respiration. Fractionation during these
processes is mass dependent, affecting δ 17O about half as much as δ 18O. An ‘‘anomalous’’
fractionation process, which changes δ 17O and δ 18O of O2 about equally, takes place
during isotope exchange between O2 and CO2 in the stratosphere. The relative rates of
biologic O2 production and stratospheric processing determine the relationship between
δ 17O and δ 18O of O2 in the atmosphere. Variations of this relationship thus allow us to
estimate changes in the rate of mass-dependent O2 production by photosynthesis versus the
rate of O2-CO2 exchange in the stratosphere with about equal fractionations of δ 17O and
δ 18O. In this study we reconstruct total oxygen productivity for the last glacial, the last
glacial termination, and the early Holocene from the triple isotope composition of
atmospheric oxygen trapped in ice cores.With a box model we estimate that total biogenic
productivity was only ~76–83% of today for the glacial and was probably lower than
today during the glacial-interglacial transition and the early Holocene. Depending on how
reduced the oxygen flux from the land biosphere was during the glacial, the oxygen flux
from the glacial ocean biosphere was 88–140% of its present value.
Direct link to page: http://cmi.princeton.edu/bibliography/results.php?author=4289
