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Limited lateral transport bias during export of sea surface temperature proxy carriers in the Mediterranean Sea
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  • Addison Rice,
  • Peter Dirk Nooteboom,
  • Erik Van Sebille,
  • Francien Peterse,
  • Martin Ziegler,
  • Appy Sluijs
Addison Rice
Utrecht University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Peter Dirk Nooteboom
Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht
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Erik Van Sebille
Utrecht University
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Francien Peterse
Utrecht University
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Martin Ziegler
Utrecht University
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Appy Sluijs
Utrecht University
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Abstract

Some lipid-biomarker-based sea surface temperature (SST) proxies applied in the modern Mediterranean Sea exhibit large offsets from expected values, generating uncertainties in climate reconstructions. Lateral transport of proxy carriers along ocean currents prior to burial can contribute to this offset between reconstructed and expected SSTs above the burial site and at the particle’s origin in the surface ocean. We perform virtual particle tracking experiments to simulate transport during sinking and derive a quantitative estimate of transport bias for alkenones and glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs), which form the basis of the UK’37 and TEX86 paleothermometers, respectively. We use sinking speeds appropriate for the export of various proxy carriers (6, 12, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, and 1000 m d-1). For the assessed sinking speeds, lateral transport bias is generally small (always <0.75 °C) within the Mediterranean Sea and does not substantially contribute to the uncertainties in UK’37- or TEX86-based SSTs.
28 Feb 2022Published in Geophysical Research Letters volume 49 issue 4. 10.1029/2021GL096859