Assessing Wind-driven Circulation Variability in the Subtropical N. Atlantic Using an Array of Archived Radiocarbon Records

该奖项由2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助。在北大西洋，大西洋子午线翻转环流和副热带环流(STC)为赤道热量的极地输送提供了便利。海洋学数据的短暂仪器记录表明，这两个机制的输送平衡发生了变化，但这些记录篇幅较短，仍未解决这些变化是否反映了气候系统的周期或趋势的问题。这项研究分析了来自热带大西洋不同地点的珊瑚和硬脊椎动物骨骼中存储的放射性碳(14C)记录，以限制过去一个世纪及以后STC的变化。这些骨骼档案所在的位置为地球化学古海洋学数据提供了独特的机会，这些数据在时间上丰富，但在空间上稀少，有助于解释短暂的仪器记录。这项研究的结果不仅会引起古海洋学家和古气候学家的兴趣，也会引起气候模型师的兴趣，他们的目标可能是使用数值模拟来对该项目产生的记录进行空间内插。该奖项支持一名研究生研究助理和一名早期职业PI。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).In the North Atlantic Ocean, poleward transport of equatorial heat is facilitated by both the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Subtropical Cells (STCs). Changes in the transport balance of these two mechanisms have been suggested by the short instrumental record of oceanographic data, but questions about whether these changes reflect cycles or trends in the climate system remain unaddressed by the short length of these records. This research analyzes radiocarbon (14C) records stored in the skeletons of corals and sclerosponges from a variety of locations across the tropical Atlantic to constrain changes in the STCs over the past century and beyond. The locations from which these skeletal archives have been taken enable a unique opportunity for geochemical paleoceanographic data, rich in temporal extent but spatially sparse, to aid in the interpretation of the short instrumental record. Results from this study will be of interest not only to paleo-oceanographers and paleoclimatologists, but also to climate modelers who may aim to use numeric simulations to spatially interpolate the records resulting from this project. This award supports a graduate research assistant and an early career PI.