The Southern ocean’s biological response to atmospheric iron fertilisation ...

The role of atmospheric iron deposition in influencing primary productivity in the iron-limited Southern Ocean has been a subject of longstanding interest. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of iron fertilisation by mineral dust and wildfire smoke in the Southern Ocean, using an integrate...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Weis, Jakob
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: University of Tasmania 2024
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Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/26123578
https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_Southern_ocean_s_biological_response_to_atmospheric_iron_fertilisation/26123578
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Summary:The role of atmospheric iron deposition in influencing primary productivity in the iron-limited Southern Ocean has been a subject of longstanding interest. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of iron fertilisation by mineral dust and wildfire smoke in the Southern Ocean, using an integrated approach of ocean colour satellite imagery, biogeochemical ocean profiling float observations, and atmospheric and biogeochemical simulations. The primary findings of this research include a significant basin-scale correlation between dust-derived iron deposition and annual net community production (ANCP) in the present-day Southern Ocean’s epipelagic zone. The ANCP-dust relationship enables the calculation of ANCP and dust-supported ANCP maps from dust fluxes. From these we infer that, at present, one third of productivity in the iron-limited ice-free Southern Ocean is supported by dust. This correlation further offers valuable insights into the potential impacts of dust-iron fertilisation on ...