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Title: Reviews and syntheses: the GESAMP atmospheric iron deposition model intercomparison study

Journal Article · · Biogeosciences (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [1];  [5];  [5]; ORCiD logo [5];  [6];  [7]; ORCiD logo [8];  [9]; ORCiD logo [10];  [10];  [11]; ORCiD logo [11]; ORCiD logo [12]; ORCiD logo [13]; ORCiD logo [14]; ORCiD logo [15]
  1. Univ. of Utrecht (Netherlands)
  2. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama (Japan)
  3. Univ. of Crete (Greece)
  4. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  5. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
  6. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States)
  7. North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)
  8. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  9. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris (France). Villefranche Oceanographic Lab.
  10. Univ. of East Anglia (United Kingdom)
  11. Physical Research Lab., Ahmedabad (India)
  12. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  13. Univ. of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS (Australia); Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems CRC, Hobart, TAS (Australia)
  14. Univ. of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS (Australia)
  15. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)

This work reports on the current status of the global modeling of iron (Fe) deposition fluxes and atmospheric concentrations and the analyses of the differences between models, as well as between models and observations. A total of four global 3-D chemistry transport (CTMs) and general circulation (GCMs) models participated in this intercomparison, in the framework of the United Nations Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) Working Group 38, “The Atmospheric Input of Chemicals to the Ocean”. The global total Fe (TFe) emission strength in the models is equal to ~72Tg Fe yr-1 (38–134 TgFeyr-1) from mineral dust sources and around 2.1Tg Fe yr-1 (1.8–2.7 Tg Fe yr-1) from combustion processes (the sum of anthropogenic combustion/biomass burning and wildfires). The mean global labile Fe (LFe) source strength in the models, considering both the primary emissions and the atmospheric processing, is calculated to be 0.7 (±0.3)Tg Fe yr-1, accounting for both mineral dust and combustion aerosols. The mean global deposition fluxes into the global ocean are estimated to be in the range of 10–30 and 0.2–0.4 Tg Fe yr-1 for TFe and LFe, respectively, which roughly corresponds to a respective 15 and 0.3 Tg Fe yr-1 for the multi-model ensemble model mean. The model intercomparison analysis indicates that the representation of the atmospheric Fe cycle varies among models, in terms of both the magnitude of natural and combustion Fe emissions as well as the complexity of atmospheric processing parameterizations of Fe-containing aerosols. The model comparison with aerosol Fe observations over oceanic regions indicates that most models overestimate surface level TFe mass concentrations near dust source regions and tend to underestimate the low concentrations observed in remote ocean regions. All models are able to simulate the tendency of higher Fe concentrations near and downwind from the dust source regions, with the mean normalized bias for the Northern Hemisphere (~14), larger than that of the Southern Hemisphere (~2.4) for the ensemble model mean. This model intercomparison and model–observation comparison study reveals two critical issues in LFe simulations that require further exploration: (1) the Fe-containing aerosol size distribution and (2) the relative contribution of dust and combustion sources of Fe to labile Fe in atmospheric aerosols over the remote oceanic regions.

Research Organization:
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006791
OSTI ID:
1594109
Journal Information:
Biogeosciences (Online), Vol. 15, Issue 21; ISSN 1726-4189
Publisher:
European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 51 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Responses of ocean biogeochemistry to atmospheric supply of lithogenic and pyrogenic iron-containing aerosols journal November 2019
Temporal Characterization of Dust Activity in the Central Patagonia Desert (Years 1964–2017) journal March 2019
Tracing and constraining anthropogenic aerosol iron fluxes to the North Atlantic Ocean using iron isotopes journal June 2019
Pyrogenic iron: The missing link to high iron solubility in aerosols journal May 2019
Testing Iron Stable Isotope Ratios as a Signature of Biomass Burning journal February 2019
The acidity of atmospheric particles and clouds journal January 2020
Improved methodologies for Earth system modelling of atmospheric soluble iron and observation comparisons using the Mechanism of Intermediate complexity for Modelling Iron (MIMI v1.0) journal January 2019

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