Atmospheric iron (Fe) from anthropogenic, lithogenic, and pyrogenic sources contributes to ocean fertilization, climate change, and human health risk. However, significant uncertainties remain in the source apportionment due to a lack of source-specific evaluation of Fe-laden aerosols. Here, the large uncertainties in the model estimates are investigated using different Fe emissions from metal production. The best agreement in the anthropogenic factor of aerosol Fe concentrations with the field data in the downstream region of East Asian outflow (median: 0.026 μg m-3) is obtained with the low case (0.023 μg m-3), whereas the best agreement of aerosol Fe bioaccessibility with field data (4.5%) over oceans south of 45°S is obtained with the high case (4.9%). Our simulation with the low case confirms that anthropogenic aerosols play dominant roles in bioaccessible Fe deposition in the northwestern Pacific, compared to lithogenic sources. Our simulations with higher cases suggest that Fe-containing particles co-emitted with sulfur dioxide from metal production substantially contribute to atmospheric bioaccessible Fe fluxes to the Southern Ocean. These findings highlight that accurate representation of aerosol Fe from metal production is a key to reduce large uncertainties in bioaccessible Fe deposition fluxes to the Southern Ocean (0.7-4.4 Gg Fe year-1).
Keywords: air pollution; anthropogenic aerosol; bioaccessible iron; metal production; mineral dust.