Sustained upwelling of subsurface iron supplies seasonally persistent phytoplankton blooms around the Southern Kerguelen Plateau, Southern Ocean
- Schallenberg, C
- Bestley, S
- Klocker, A
- Trull, TW
- Davies, DM
- Gault-Ringold, M
- Eriksen, R
- Roden, NP
- Sander, SG
- Sumner, M
- Townsend, AT
- van der Merwe, P
- Westwood, K
- Wuttig, K
- Bowie, A
DOIAbstract
Although the supply of iron generally limits phytoplankton productivity in the Southern Ocean, substantial seasonal blooms are observed over and downstream of the Kerguelen plateau in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Surprisingly, of the oceanic blooms, those associated with the deeper southern plateau last much longer (~3 months) than the northern bloom (~1‐month downstream of northern plateau). In this study, iron supply mechanisms around the southern plateau were investigated, obtaining profiles of dissolved iron (<0.2 μm, dFe) to 2,000‐m deep at 25 stations during austral summer 2016. The dFe concentrations in surface waters (≤100‐m depth) ranged from below the detection limit (DL, median of 0.026 nmol/kg) to 0.34 nmol/kg near t...
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