Over the past week, CHASE attended the Iron at the Air-Sea Interaction Workshop (26-30 July 2021, Asheville, NC, USA and on-line), organized by GEOTRACES (funded by DOE, SOLAS and SCOR) and hosted by Dr. Nicholas Meskhidze (NC State University, USA) and Dr. William Landing (Schmidt Ocean Institute, USA).
During five whole days, world-class scientists in the multidisciplinary and ever-evolving atmospheric dust research gathered (in person and via zoom) to discuss a wide range of topics related to the factors controlling aerosol-born bioaccessible labile Fe to move across the ocean-atmosphere interface and to become bioavailable for biological uptake in the ocean.
Atmospheric and oceanographic scientists from all corners of the world to discuss the factors controlling aerosol-born bioaccessible labile Fe to become bioavailable across the ocean-atmosphere interface.
We had a very nice feedback to our findings regarding the potential of Saharan dust deposition in modulating the impact of coccolithophores on the “rain ratio” and on the functioning of the “biological carbon pump” across the tropical North Atlantic (see Guerreiro et al., 2021 and project DUSTTRAFFIC). One of our goals was to highlight the importance of considering the impacts of dust deposition on distinct phytoplankton groups not only at the surface but along the entire photic zone at mid- to low-latitude regions, where most of the phytoplankton production occurs at water depths that are undetectable by satellite remote sensing.
Catarina Guerreiro presenting recent findings from CHASE.
This was, above all, a great opportunity to learn a whole bunch of new interesting stuff about Iron at the Air-Sea Interaction. Perhaps one of the most discussed topics was that referring to the growing body of evidence pointing to a significant contribution of pyrogenic aerosols (~20%) to the atmospheric supply of dissolved iron into the ocean, possibly with a higher fertilising efficiency compared to lithogenic dust sources (see Ito et al., 2021).
Now that the workshop as successfully been adjourned, the next step will be writing a white paper providing a workshop assessment report based on the consensus reached by diverse researchers from the oceanographic and atmospheric science communities with backgrounds in the laboratory and in situ measurements, modeling, and remote sensing. Looking forward to being part of some more fruitful scientific discussions!