@article{601918920f7c409db17d613cd1b76d18,
title = "A Pleistocene ice core record of atmospheric O2 concentrations",
abstract = "The history of atmospheric O2 partial pressures (PO2) is inextricably linked to the coevolution of life and Earth's biogeochemical cycles. Reconstructions of past PO2 rely on models and proxies but often markedly disagree. We present a record of PO2 reconstructed using O2/N2 ratios from ancient air trapped in ice. This record indicates that PO2 declined by 7 per mil (0.7%) over the past 800,000 years, requiring that O2 sinks were ∼2% larger than sources. This decline is consistent with changes in burial and weathering fluxes of organic carbon and pyrite driven by either Neogene cooling or increasing Pleistocene erosion rates. The 800,000-year record of steady average carbon dioxide partial pressures (PCO2) but declining PO2 provides distinctive evidence that a silicate weathering feedback stabilizes PCO2 on million-year time scales.",
author = "Stolper, {D. A.} and Bender, {M. L.} and Dreyfus, {G. B.} and Y. Yan and Higgins, {J. A.}",
note = "Funding Information: D.A.S. acknowledges funding from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate & Global Change postdoctoral fellowship. J.A.H. and M.L.B. acknowledge support from National Science Foundation grant ANT-1443263. All data presented are available in the supplementary materials. We thank W. Fischer, I. Halevy, N. Planavsky, J. Severinghaus, and D. Sigman for helpful discussions and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. D.A.S., J.A.H., and M.L.B. conceived the study and wrote the manuscript. D.A.S., J.A.H., M.L.B., and Y.Y. analyzed the data. G.B.D. measured the Dome C dAr/N2 data. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Energy or the U.S. Government. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2016 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; all rights reserved.",
year = "2016",
month = sep,
day = "23",
doi = "10.1126/science.aaf5445",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "353",
pages = "1427--1430",
journal = "Science",
issn = "0036-8075",
publisher = "American Association for the Advancement of Science",
number = "6306",
}