It is learned from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITPCAS). An international research team led by Researcher Zan Jinbo and Academician Fang Xiaomin from the Cenozoic Environment Team of ITPCAS has systematically reviewed the impacts of dust aerosols on the global carbon cycle and climate through their research. They sorted out and revealed the evolutionary patterns of dust flux, differences in mineral composition and key nutrient content in major global dust source areas during geological periods, and evaluated their potential impacts on marine ecosystems. On this basis, the team clarified the key role and feedback mechanisms of the dust cycle in the global biogeochemical cycle and climate change, and pointed out the breakthrough directions for future research in this field. The relevant research results were published online in the academic journal Nature Reviews: Earth & Environment on November 11.
Researcher Zan Jinbo from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITPCAS) stated that global land releases over 4 billion tons of dust aerosols annually. As a key link connecting land, atmosphere, and oceans, dust originating from arid and semi-arid regions carries marine limiting nutrients such as iron and phosphorus. It is transported over long distances to oceans via atmospheric circulation and then deposited. This process exerts a crucial “fertilization effect” on marine phytoplankton. It not only effectively enhances marine primary productivity but also transfers and sequesters large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep sea by strengthening the “biological pump” efficiency, thereby profoundly influencing the global carbon cycle and climate change. Current studies mostly focus on dust flux changes. However, there is still a lack of systematic understanding of the complete chain of “source-evolution-biological effects”， especially the interaction mechanisms between dust composition and marine biological communities. This has become a key bottleneck restricting the accurate assessment of dust’s climatic effects.
The research team believes that the three core directions for future dust research are as follows:
(1) Integrate modern observations, algae culture experiments, and multi-proxy paleoclimate reconstruction to systematically quantify the nutrient composition and bioavailability of major global dust source areas (such as the Sahara and Asian arid regions).
(2) Use geochemical proxies to establish quantitative relationships between dust input and marine carbon sinks in key regions like the North Pacific, and assess the resulting carbon sink effects.
(3) Ultimately develop a regionalized parameterization scheme incorporating dust components and biological feedback processes, and embed it into Earth system models. This will significantly improve the ability to simulate and predict the “dust-carbon cycle-climate feedback mechanism”.