A team of New Zealand scientists is investigating whether dust storms in the Australian Outback are "fertilising" phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean with iron-rich dust.
The scientists have been given $600,000 over the next three years from the Government's Marsden Fund to track Outback dust storms to see if winds aresweeping the iron towards New Zealand, to be carried from the Tasman Sea into the iron-deficient Southern Ocean.
The extent to which the Southern Ocean receives iron "fertiliser" could prove to be an important environmental issue, because it makes up 15 per cent of the world's oceans but is naturally deficient in the iron necessary for phytoplankton growth.
Scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) undertook an iron fertilisation experiment in 1999, when they showed that by raising iron levels in the Southern Ocean, plankton levels also rose significantly.
Some scientists have suggested that more plankton would mean more carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere and "sunk" in the ocean depths when the phytoplankton died and sank.
This could theoretically help reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a key factor in global warming.
