Published in

Stockholm University Press, Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 4(48), p. 487, 1996

DOI: 10.3402/tellusb.v48i4.15928

Stockholm University Press, Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 4(48), p. 487-501, 1996

DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.1996.t01-2-00007.x

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The earth's radiocarbon budget: A consistent model of the global carbon and radiocarbon cycles

Journal article published in 1996 by Keith R. Lassey, Ian G. Enting ORCID, Cathy M. Trudinger
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We present the results from a global carbon-cycle model which transports 3 isotopes of carbon amongst model reservoirs. Particular emphasis is placed on the dynamics and budget of 14C produced by nuclear weapons testing and augmenting natural cosmogenic production. The evolution of the “bomb 14C” budget, particularly since ca. 1970, has recently been under scrutiny, and our ability to balance it been questioned. These misgivings arose from an inability to simulate simultaneously both the rising atmospheric CO2 and the decline in its 14C/12C ratio. We use the Enting-Lassey carbon-cycle model based on a box-diffusion ocean sub-model to deduce the evolution of the budgets for both anthropogenic carbon and bomb 14C, and show that these can be simultaneously reconciled with tropospheric observation. The bomb 14C inventory in the model ocean is also compatible with a recent re-analysis of GEOSECS data. A key and distinctive feature of our model is the forward integration driven even-handedly by inputs of anthropogenic carbon, both from industrial sources and land use change, and bomb 14C, consistently with documented emission or production patterns.