1. Australian fire nourishes ocean phytoplankton bloom.
- Author
-
Wang Y, Chen HH, Tang R, He D, Lee Z, Xue H, Wells M, Boss E, and Chai F
- Subjects
- Aerosols, Australia, Oceans and Seas, Seawater, Atmosphere, Phytoplankton
- Abstract
An unprecedented devastating forest fire occurred in Australia from September 2019 to March 2020. Satellite observations revealed that this rare fire event in Australia destroyed a record amount of more than 202,387 km
2 of forest, including 56,471 km2 in eastern Australia, which is mostly composed of evergreen forest. The released aerosols contained essential nutrients for the growth of marine phytoplankton and were transported by westerly winds over the Southern Ocean, with rainfall-induced deposition to the ocean beneath. Here, we show that a prominent oceanic bloom, indicated by the rapid growth of phytoplankton, took place in the Southern Ocean along the trajectory of fire-born aerosols in response to atmospheric deposition. Calculations of carbon released during the fire versus carbon absorbed by the oceanic phytoplankton bloom suggest that they were nearly equal. This finding illustrates the critical role of the oceans in mitigating natural and anthropogenic carbon dioxide releases to the atmosphere, which are a primary driver of climate change., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this manuscript., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)- Published
- 2022
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