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Limited decrease of Southern Ocean sulfur productivity across the penultimate termination

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 160–166 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Productivity in the Pleistocene glacial Southern Ocean was probably enhanced owing to iron fertilization by aeolian dust. Marine sediments indicate such an increase north of the modern Antarctic Polar Front but reduced biogenic activity south of it. However, quantitative estimates for the integrated net effect are difficult to obtain. Here we use the SO42− isotopic composition and other geochemical ice core records from the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean to reconstruct net changes in integrated biogenic sulfur productivity in the surface ocean over the penultimate glacial termination. We show that biogenic SO42− aerosol contributes 58% and 85% to the sulfate budget in Dronning Maud Land during glacial and interglacial times, respectively, and that biogenic sulfate is derived predominately from the seasonal sea ice zone. Using our quantitative reconstruction of biogenic aerosol production in the Southern Ocean source region, we show that the average biogenic sulfate production integrated over the Atlantic sector was 16% higher in the penultimate glacial 137,000–153,000 years ago compared with the later Last Interglacial 120,000–125,000 years ago. An intermittent decrease in productivity observed during early peak interglacial warming suggests that a reduction in the seasonal sea ice zone may disrupt Southern Ocean ecosystems.

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Fig. 1: Location of ice cores and marine sediment cores used in the manuscript.
Fig. 2: Measured EDML aerosol and temperature tracer data.
Fig. 3: Contributions from different sources to the total SO42− budget at EDML.
Fig. 4: Modelled atmospheric concentration of biogenic SO42−.
Fig. 5: Bioproductivity in the Atlantic Sector-Southern Ocean north and south of the mAPF.

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Data availability

EDML and B38 ice core data and derived quantities can be found in Supplementary Table 1 and are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14199069 (ref. 58).

Code availability

Data evaluation is based on simple MATLAB code, which is available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

H.F. gratefully acknowledges the financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant nos. 200020_172506 and 200020B_200328) and sabbatical support by the University of St Andrews in 2022. This work is a contribution to the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA), a joint European Science Foundation/European Commission scientific programme, funded by the EU (EPICA-MIS) and by national contributions from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The main logistic support was provided by Institut Polaire Français Paul-Émile Victor and Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (at Dome C) and Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (at Dronning Maud Land). This is EPICA publication no. 323.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Hubertus Fischer & Tobias Erhardt

  2. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Andrea Burke, James Rae & Patrick J. Sugden

  3. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Tobias Erhardt, Birthe Twarloh, Maria Hörhold & Johannes Freitag

  4. Institute of Geosciences and Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Tobias Erhardt

  5. INSTAAR, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Bradley Markle

  6. Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Mirko Severi

  7. Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Margareta Hansson

  8. Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement, Université Grenoble Alpes/CNRS, Grenoble, France

    Joel Savarino

  9. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Helena Pryer, Emily Doyle & Eric Wolff

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Contributions

H.F. and A.B. designed the project. Ice core samples for sulfate isotope measurements were prepared by H.F. at AWI with the help of T.E., B.T., M.H. and J.F. Sulfur isotope analyses and quality control were performed at St Andrews by A.B., J.R. and P.J.S. Published aerosol chemical data were measured at University of Bern, AWI and University of Florence. EDML high-resolution sulfate data were provided by M.S. The initial aerosol transport model was provided by B.M. and revised by H.F. B.M. performed the source area analysis to constrain biogenic sulfate source temperatures. Data analysis was performed by H.F. with input by A.B., J.R., T.E., B.M., H.P. and E.W. The paper was written by H.F. with substantial support by all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Hubertus Fischer.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Ann-Lise Norman and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: James Super, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Discussion, Figs. 1–8 and Table 1.

Supplementary Table 1

Ice core data and derived quantities.

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Fischer, H., Burke, A., Rae, J. et al. Limited decrease of Southern Ocean sulfur productivity across the penultimate termination. Nat. Geosci. 18, 160–166 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01619-7

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