RADIOCARBON AGE OF WATERS IN THE DEEP ATLANTIC REVISITED

We use a simple box model to evaluate the impact of temporal changes of the atmosphere's C-14/C on ventilation fluxes for the deep Atlantic calculated from radiocarbon measurements. The conclusion is that despite the fact that over the 300 year period from 1650 to 1950 the atmosphere's radiocarbon content declined at the same rate as radiocarbon decays, this temporal change has a relatively small impact (10-15%) on radiocarbon-based estimates of the ventilation rate of the deep Atlantic. The reason is that the radiocarbon content of the source waters for deep Atlantic are reasonably well buffered against changes in atmospheric C-14/C.