Carbon isotopic record of CO2 from the Holocene of the Dome C ice core

Distinct characteristics in the carbon isotope signatures of the major carbon reservoirs (ocean, biosphere, sediments and atmosphere) constrain variations in the CO2 fluxes between those reservoirs.

Here we present a highly resolved atmospheric d13C record for the past 11,000 years from measurements on atmospheric CO2 trapped in an Antarctic ice core. From mass-balance inverse model calculations performed with a simplified carbon cycle model, we show that the decrease in atmospheric CO2 of about 5 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) and the increase in d13C of about 0.25% during the early Holocene is most probably the result of a combination of carbon uptake of about 290 gigatonnes of carbon by the land biosphere and carbon release from the ocean in response to carbonate compensation of the terrestrial uptake during the termination of the last ice age.