Hydrothermal contribution to the oceanic dissolved iron inventory (original) (raw)

• Letter
• Published: 14 March 2010
• Laurent Bopp1,
• Jean-Claude Dutay1,
• Andrew R. Bowie3,
• Fanny Chever4,5,
• Philippe Jean-Baptiste1,
• Eva Bucciarelli4,5,
• Delphine Lannuzel3,6,
• Tomas Remenyi3,
• Géraldine Sarthou4,5,
• Olivier Aumont7,
• Marion Gehlen1 &
• …
• Catherine Jeandel8

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 252–256 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Iron limits phytoplankton growth and hence the biological carbon pump in the Southern Ocean1. Models assessing the impacts of iron on the global carbon cycle generally rely on dust input and sediment resuspension as the predominant sources2,3. Although it was previously thought that most iron from deep-ocean hydrothermal activity was inaccessible to phytoplankton because of the formation of particulates4, it has been suggested that iron from hydrothermal activity5,6,7 may be an important source of oceanic dissolved iron8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we use a global ocean model to assess the impacts of an annual dissolved iron flux of approximately 9×108 mol, as estimated from regional observations of hydrothermal activity11,12, on the dissolved iron inventory of the world’s oceans. We find the response to the input of hydrothermal dissolved iron is greatest in the Southern Hemisphere oceans. In particular, observations of the distribution of dissolved iron in the Southern Ocean3 (Chever et al., manuscript in preparation; Bowie et al., manuscript in preparation) can be replicated in our simulations only when our estimated iron flux from hydrothermal sources is included. As the hydrothermal flux of iron is relatively constant over millennial timescales14, we propose that hydrothermal activity can buffer the oceanic dissolved iron inventory against shorter-term fluctuations in dust deposition.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from grant GOCE-511176 (EU FP6 RTP project CARBOOCEAN) funded by the European Commission, CNRS (France), International Polar Year GEOTRACES, the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC (ACE CRC) and the Australian Antarctic Division (project AAS 2900). This work was carried out using HPC resources from GENCI-IDRIS (Grant 2009-10040). We thank the captains and crew of the Aurora Australia and Marion Dufrense for their assistance at sea, A. Lenton, J. Orr, N. Flipo, W. Howard and P. van der Merwe for comments, J. K. Moore for providing the Southern Ocean sediment iron input from the BEC model and E. Butler and R. Watson for help in collecting the samples along the SR3-GEOTRACES transect.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, IPSL-CEA-CNRS-UVSQ Orme des Merisiers, 91191, Gif sur Yvette, France
   Alessandro Tagliabue, Laurent Bopp, Jean-Claude Dutay, Philippe Jean-Baptiste & Marion Gehlen
2. Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques, IPSL-UPMC-MHNH-IRD-CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France
   Alessandro Tagliabue
3. Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems CRC, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 80, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
   Andrew R. Bowie, Delphine Lannuzel & Tomas Remenyi
4. Université Européenne de Bretagne, Université de Brest, CNRS, IRD, UMR 6539 LEMAR, IUEM;,
   Fanny Chever, Eva Bucciarelli & Géraldine Sarthou
5. Technopôle Brest Iroise, Place Nicolas Corpernic, F-29280 Plouzané, France
   Fanny Chever, Eva Bucciarelli & Géraldine Sarthou
6. Centre for Marine Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 78, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
   Delphine Lannuzel
7. Laboratoire de Physique des Océans, Centre IRD de Bretagne, 29280 Plouzané, France
   Olivier Aumont
8. Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiale (LEGOS), CNES/CNRS/UPS/IRD, Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, 14 av. E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
   Catherine Jeandel

Authors

1. Alessandro Tagliabue
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2. Laurent Bopp
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3. Jean-Claude Dutay
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4. Andrew R. Bowie
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5. Fanny Chever
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6. Philippe Jean-Baptiste
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7. Eva Bucciarelli
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8. Delphine Lannuzel
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9. Tomas Remenyi
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10. Géraldine Sarthou
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11. Olivier Aumont
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12. Marion Gehlen
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13. Catherine Jeandel
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Contributions

Manuscript preparation, conducting simulations and analysing results (A.T.), compiling hydrothermal iron and helium data set (P.J.-B.), project planning and experimental design (A.T., L.B., J.-C.D., P.J.-B, O.A., M.G. and C.J.), new Southern Ocean Fe observations during International Polar Year GEOTRACES (A.T., A.R.B., F.C., E.B., D.L., T.R. and G.S.), helium data/model analysis (A.T. and J.-C.D.). All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and their implications, as well as commenting on the manuscript.

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Correspondence toAlessandro Tagliabue.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Tagliabue, A., Bopp, L., Dutay, JC. et al. Hydrothermal contribution to the oceanic dissolved iron inventory.Nature Geosci 3, 252–256 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo818

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• Received: 08 September 2009
• Accepted: 09 February 2010
• Published: 14 March 2010
• Issue Date: April 2010
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo818

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