Atmospheric Iron Deposition: Global Distribution, Variability, and Human Perturbations
Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Chemistry
Publication Date
1-2009
Abstract
Atmospheric inputs of iron to the open ocean are hypothesized to modulate ocean biogeochemistry. This review presents an integration of available observations of atmospheric iron and iron deposition, and also covers bioavailable iron distributions. Methods for estimating temporal variability in ocean deposition over the recent past are reviewed. Desert dust iron is estimated to represent 95% of the global atmospheric iron cycle, and combustion sources of iron are responsible for the remaining 5%. Humans may be significantly perturbing desert dust (up to 50%). The sources of bioavailable iron are less well understood than those of iron, partly because we do not know what speciation of the iron is bioavailable. Bioavailable iron can derive from atmospheric processing of relatively insoluble desert dust iron or from direct emissions of soluble iron from combustion sources. These results imply that humans could be substantially impacting iron and bioavailable iron deposition to ocean regions, but there are large uncertainties in our understanding.
Recommended Citation
Mahowald, N. M., Engelstaedter, S., Luo, C., Sealy, A., Artaxo, P., Benitez-Nelson, C., Bonnet, S., Chen, Y., Chuang, P. Y., Cohen, D. D., Dulac, F., Herut, B., Johansen, A. M., Kubilay, N., Losno, R., Maenhaut, W., Paytan, A., Prospero, J. M., Shank, L. M., & Siefert, R. L. (2009). Atmospheric Iron Deposition: Global Distribution, Variability, and Human Perturbations. Annual Review of Marine Science, 1(1), 245–278. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163727
Journal
Annual Review of Marine Science
Rights
Copyright © 2009 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.
Comments
This article was originally published in Annual Review of Marine Science . The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.
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