Persistent equatorial Pacific iron limitation under ENSO forcing

Abstract

Projected responses of ocean net primary productivity to climate change are highly uncertain ¹. Models suggest that the climate sensitivity of phytoplankton nutrient limitation in the low-latitude Pacific Ocean plays a crucial role ^1–3, but this is poorly constrained by observations ⁴. Here we show that changes in physical forcing drove coherent fluctuations in the strength of equatorial Pacific iron limitation through multiple El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles, but that this was overestimated twofold by a state-of-the-art climate model. Our assessment was enabled by first using a combination of field nutrient-addition experiments, proteomics and above-water hyperspectral radiometry to show that phytoplankton physiological responses to iron limitation led to approximately threefold changes in chlorophyll-normalized phytoplankton fluorescence. We then exploited the >18-year satellite fluorescence record to quantify climate-induced nutrient limitation variability. Such synoptic constraints provide a powerful approach for benchmarking the realism of model projections of net primary productivity to climate changes.

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