A  calculated transfer of ~530 Gt of 14C depleted carbon is required to produce the deglacial coeval rise of carbon in the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere and in soils. While a number of key processes underlying this transfer have been identified, Earth-system models are still unable to fully reproduce it. Most likely, this transfer was linked to changes in the ventilation of the deep ocean, which by far contains the largest carbon pool on the Earth’s surface.

Accordingly, the failure to correctly represent the carbon transfer in complex models raises several important scientific questions, in particular,

• Whether deep-ocean ventilation was significantly reduced during the last glacial period,
• How and where to trace empirical evidence for a deglacial carbon release from the ocean,
• How to reconcile the carbon release with major shifts in atmospheric radiocarbon contents, and
• How to test the various alternative carbon sources and mechanisms that may have controlled the last-glacial-to-interglacial shifts in Δ14C and CO2, the most prominent short-term change in carbon pools over the last 100,000 years.

On Thursday, 19 March, 8 pm to 9.30 pm, Professor Thomas Stocker will hold a public lecture on "Klimawandel: Zu spät für 2° Celsius?" (Climate change: Too late for 2° Celsius?") in German. 

Organisers

Prof. Dr Michael Sarnthein, Member of the Leopoldina, University of Kiel (chair)
Prof. Dr Gerald Haug, Member of the Leopoldina, ETH Zuerich (vice chair)
Prof. Dr Edouard Bard, CEREGE Aix-en-Provence,
Prof. Dr. Hubertus Fischer, University of Bern
Dr Tatiana Ilyina, Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg
Prof. Dr Michael Schulz, MARUM, Bremen

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