Reconciling ice core CO2 and land-use change following New World-Old World contact.

Ice core records of carbon dioxide (CO2) throughout the last 2000 years provide context for the unprecedented anthropogenic rise in atmospheric CO2 and insights into global carbon cycle dynamics. Yet the atmospheric history of CO2 remains uncertain in some time intervals. Here we present measurements of CO2 and methane (CH4) in the Skytrain ice core from 1450 to 1700 CE. Results suggest a sudden decrease in CO2 around 1610 CE in one widely used record may be an artefact of a small number of anomalously low values. Our analysis supports a more gradual decrease in CO2 of 0.5 ppm per decade from 1516 to 1670 CE, with an inferred land carbon sink of 2.6 PgC per decade. This corroborates modelled scenarios of large-scale reorganisation of land use in the Americas following New World-Old World contact, whereas a rapid decrease in CO2 at 1610 CE is incompatible with even the most extreme land-use change scenarios.

Stylasterid corals build aragonite skeletons in undersaturated water despite low pH at the site of calcification.

Anthropogenic carbon emissions are causing seawater pH to decline, yet the impact on marine calcifiers is uncertain. Scleractinian corals and coralline algae strongly elevate the pH of their calcifying fluid (CF) to promote calcification. Other organisms adopt less energetically demanding calcification approaches but restrict their habitat. Stylasterid corals occur widely (extending well below the carbonate saturation horizon) and precipitate both aragonite and high-Mg calcite, however, their mode of biocalcification and resilience to ocean acidification are unknown. Here we measure skeletal boron isotopes (δ11B), B/Ca, and U/Ca to provide the first assessment of pH and rate of seawater flushing of stylasterid CF. Remarkably, both aragonitic and high-Mg calcitic stylasterids have low δ11B values implying little modification of internal pH. Collectively, our results suggest stylasterids have low seawater exchange rates into the calcifying space or rely on organic molecule templating to facilitate calcification. Thus, despite occupying similar niches to Scleractinia, Stylasteridae exhibit highly contrasting biocalcification, calling into question their resilience to ocean acidification.