One proposed way of dealing with climate change includes fertilising the oceans with iron. This “geoengineering“ would encourage the growth of microscopic plants - phytoplankton - which, if growing vigorously enough, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
If they’re not eaten, these tiny plants fall to the ocean floor, storing carbon for long periods of time, although we don’t yet know how this might affect ocean ecosystems.
This process in fact happens naturally when dust blows from the land to the ocean, particularly from deserts such as the Sahara and Patagonia. But although dust storms are frequent during the Australian spring and summer, and Australian dust has a high iron content, witnessing the oceans bloom has proven elusive.
Now, however, armed with satellite data, we’ve recorded phytoplankton blooming, almost certainly due to Australian dust storms. Our results are published this month in the Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research.
Sydney’s Red Dawn
