Iron is a critical nutrient for all plant growth in the oceans, but its recycling processes are not well understood which makes climate and ecosystem modeling difficult.

UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography researcher Daniel Ohnemus is part of a team that recently published a paper in the journal Nature Communications that shows that, unlike traditional nutrients like phosphorus which are efficiently recycled and can accumulate in the ocean, iron recycling is highly inefficient because it is removed onto particles by scavenging.

Daniel Ohnemus

These new insights will combine with future field and modeling efforts to reduce uncertainty in global climate model projections.

Alessandro Tagliabue of the University of Liverpool was the lead scientist on the project.

The article can be viewed here.