Duke University: Australian Wildfires Triggered Massive Algal Blooms in Southern Ocean
India, Sept. 18 -- Clouds of smoke and ash from wildfires that ravaged Australia in 2019 and 2020 triggered widespread algal blooms in the Southern Ocean thousands of miles downwind to the east, a new Duke University-led study by an international team of scientists finds.The peer-reviewed study, published September 15 in Nature, is the first to conclusively link a large-scale response in marine life to fertilization by pyrogenic - or fire-made - iron aerosols from a wildfire.It shows that tiny aerosol particles of iron in the windborne smoke and ash fertilized the water as they fell into it, providing nutrients to fuel blooms at a scale unprecedented in that region.The discovery raises intriguing new questions about the role wildfires may...
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