Title

Atmospheric Iron Deposition: Global Distribution, Variability, and Human Perturbations

Authors

Natalie M. Mahowald, Cornell University
Sebastian Engelstaedter, Cornell University
Chao Luo, Cornell University
Andrea Sealy, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Paulo Artaxo, Universidade de Sao Paulo
Claudia Benitez-Nelson, University of South Carolina - Columbia
Sophie Bonnet, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
Ying Chen, Trinity Consultants
Patrick Y. Chuang, University of California, Santa Cruz
David D. Cohen, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
Francois Dulac, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement
Barak Herut, National Institute of Oceanography, Haifa, Israel
Anne Johansen, Central Washington UniversityFollow
Nilgun Kubilay, Middle East Technical University
Remi Losno, Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques
Willy Maenhaut, Ghent University
Adina Paytan, University of California, Santa Cruz
Joseph M. Prospero, University of Miami
Lindsey M. Shank, Central Washington University
Ronald L. Siefert, U.S. Naval Academy

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.

Comments

This article was originally published in Annual Review of Marine Science . The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.

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.