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Title: Anthropogenic combustion iron as a complex climate forcer

Journal Article · · Nature Communications

Atmospheric iron affects the global carbon cycle by modulating ocean biogeochemistry through the deposition of soluble iron to the ocean. Iron emitted by anthropogenic (fossil fuel) combustion is a source of soluble iron that is currently considered less important than other soluble iron sources, such as mineral dust and biomass burning. Here we show that the atmospheric burden of anthropogenic combustion iron is 8 times greater than previous estimates by incorporating recent measurements of anthropogenic magnetite into a global aerosol model. This new estimation increases the total deposition flux of soluble iron to southern oceans (30–90 °S) by 52%, with a larger contribution of anthropogenic combustion iron than dust and biomass burning sources. The direct radiative forcing of anthropogenic magnetite is estimated to be 0.021 W m–2 globally and 0.22 W m–2 over East Asia. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that anthropogenic combustion iron is a larger and more complex climate forcer than previously thought, and therefore plays a key role in the Earth system.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830; SC0006791; SC0006735
OSTI ID:
1437039
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1594110
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 68 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (11)

Individual particle analysis of marine aerosols collected during the North–South transect cruise in the Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas journal August 2019
Abundance and Emission Flux of the Anthropogenic Iron Oxide Aerosols From the East Asian Continental Outflow journal October 2018
Tracing and constraining anthropogenic aerosol iron fluxes to the North Atlantic Ocean using iron isotopes journal June 2019
Climate-driven oscillation of phosphorus and iron limitation in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre journal June 2019
African biomass burning is a substantial source of phosphorus deposition to the Amazon, Tropical Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Ocean journal July 2019
Pyrogenic iron: The missing link to high iron solubility in aerosols journal May 2019
Reviews and syntheses: the GESAMP atmospheric iron deposition model intercomparison study journal January 2018
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
Tracing and constraining anthropogenic aerosol iron fluxes to the North Atlantic Ocean using iron isotopes journal June 2019
Climate-driven oscillation of phosphorus and iron limitation in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre journal June 2019
Pyrogenic iron: The missing link to high iron solubility in aerosols journal May 2019