Climate‐Modulated Nutrient Conditions Along the Labrador Shelf: Evidence From Nitrogen Isotopes in a Six‐Hundred‐Year‐Old Crustose Coralline Alga

Abstract

AbstractThe impacts of climate change on north Atlantic nutrient chemistry remain poorly understood, as there exist a multitude of rapidly changing biological and physical drivers of nutrient conditions throughout the region. Here, we present nitrogen isotope measurements derived from a six‐hundred‐year‐old crustose coralline alga (δ15Nalgal) to elucidate historical and contemporary trends in nitrate utilization and circulation patterns along the Labrador Shelf. Prior to the early 1900s, we argue that intervals during which utilization approached completion were controlled by reduced nitrate advection linked to an increased proportion of nitrate‐poor polar waters and subdued Atlantic influence, as expected from concurrent negative modes of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. While nitrate conditions should have recovered in recent years, our record suggests that high utilization persisted since ∼1870, which we also attribute to reduced Atlantic advection, likely associated with the twentieth‐century anthropogenic weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. These results highlight the role of ongoing climate‐induced circulation changes in modulating nutrient distributions throughout the subpolar north Atlantic, which may have implications for other environmental phenomena such as fisheries and oceanic carbon storage.