干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Soil dust mobilised from arid regions is transported through and processed within the atmosphere before deposition to marine and terrestrial ecosystems remote from the source regions. This process represents a significant source of iron to the oceans, which creates feedback loops throughout the Earth’s system. The very limited solubility of iron from dust makes the determination of this solubility, how it varies and how this may influence ocean biogeochemistry of considerable importance. In this short communicationwe summarise a series of recent studies of mechanisms that control solubility and then consider how these results influence the inputs of iron to the oceans and their isotopic signature.