Testing Assumptions in the Modeling of Radiocarbon in Ocean Biogeochemical Models (Preprint)
This new preprint, Testing Assumptions in the Modeling of Radiocarbon in Ocean Biogeochemical Models, led by PhD candidate Nikita Tournebise at UCSB, has been posted to ESS Open Archive. The study evaluates four common simplifying assumptions used in ocean radiocarbon models: neglecting biological fluxes, neglecting virtual fluxes, modeling radiocarbon as a ratio tracer, and assuming constant preindustrial atmospheric conditions. The results show that assuming constant preindustrial atmospheric conditions produces the largest differences in modeled ∆14C, while the ratio-tracer formulation and omission of biological fluxes introduce smaller biases that are generally within measurement uncertainty. These findings help identify which model simplifications are suitable for future studies using radiocarbon to understand ocean circulation, ventilation, and air-sea gas exchange.
