Data associated with the publication: Characterizing the roles of biogeochemical cycling and ocean circulation in regulating marine copper distributions

• Main Authors: Cui, Minming, Gnanadesikan, Anand
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Johns Hopkins Research Data Repository 2021
• Subjects: Earth and Environmental Sciences; global warming; ocean biogeochemistry; metal cycling; circulation model; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7281/T1/BNSVVD

Despite many improvements in understanding the role of copper (Cu) in microbial metabolism, we still lack the understanding of its biogeochemistry in the ocean. One difficulty is how to interpret the linear depth profiles of dissolved Cu in the ocean. Additionally, the relationships between Cu and macronutrients in the global ocean have not been well characterized. Examining the relationships between observed Cu, PO43–, and Si, we found that Cu was more correlated with Si than PO43– in the global ocean. In our model, both biogeochemical cycling and internal circulation are important for explaining global marine Cu distributions. Our modeling results suggest a deep remineralization of Cu, which is consistent with previous lab results. Furthermore, the modeling results indicate that the uptake of Cu in the Southern Ocean is substantially higher than that in non-Southern Oceans. These results lead us to hypothesize that phytoplankton such as diatoms living in the Southern Ocean dominate marine Cu distributions.