El Niño-Driven Oxygenation Impacts Peruvian Shelf Iron Supply to the South Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Upwelling ocean currents associated with oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) supply nutrients fuelling intense marine productivity. Perturbations in the extent and intensity of OMZs are projected in the future, but it is currently uncertain how this will impact fluxes of redox-sensitive trace metal micronutrients to the surface ocean. Here we report seawater concentrations of Fe, Mn, Co, Cd, and Ni alongside the redox indicator iodide/iodate in the Peruvian OMZ during the 2015 El Niño event. The El Niño drove atypical upwelling of oxygen-enriched water over the Peruvian Shelf, resulting in oxidized iodine and strongly depleted Fe (II), total dissolved Fe, and reactive particulate Fe concentrations relative to non-El Niño conditions. Observations of Fe were matched by the redox-sensitive micronutrients Co and Mn, but not by non-redox-sensitive Cd and Ni. These observations demonstrate that oxygenation of OMZs significantly reduces water column inventories of redox-sensitive micronutrients, with potential impacts on ocean productivity.