HR: 14:20h
AN: OS13A-03 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The Mid-Latitude Westerlies, Atmospheric CO2, and Climate Change during the Ice Ages
AU: * Toggweiler, J R
EM: Robbie.Toggweiler@noaa.gov
AF: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA, PO Box 308, Princeton, NJ 08542 United States
AB: An idealized three-dimensional model is constructed of the ocean's deep circulation and CO2 system that reproduces the main features of glacial-interglacial CO2 cycles, including the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperatures, the lead of Antarctic temperatures over CO2 at terminations, and the shift of the ocean's d13C minimum from the North Pacific to the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The key feature of the model is in the atmosphere instead of the ocean. The key feature is a relationship between the position of the mid-latitude westerly winds, atmospheric CO2, and the mean state of the atmosphere. Cold glacial climates seem to have equatorward-shifted westerlies, which allowed more organically cycled CO2 to accumulate in the deep ocean. Warm climates like the present have poleward-shifted westerlies that flush the organically cycled CO2 out of the deep ocean.
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
DE: 4267 Paleoceanography
DE: 4532 General circulation
DE: 4805 Biogeochemical cycles (1615)
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly