BATS 2026 - BATS Bloom 1

ICONIC - 5 of 5

Our joint NSF-NERC collaborative research project will integrate field observations from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Cape Verde Ocean Observatory (CVOO) study regions with targeted experimental studies and a state-of-the-art ocean biogeochemical model to constrain the processes that modulate interactions of iron with dissolved and particulate organic matter, and advance our ability to model the global iron cycle and the vertical export of iron and carbon in the upper ocean. We will collect seasonally resolved water column (upper 3,500 m) datasets from BATS during five cruises, shared with the monthly BATS program, spanning a full annual cycle. In late spring (cruise 3 of 5), we will augment the work at BATS with additional water column sampling along the way to, and at, the Cape Verde Ocean Observatory in the eastern North Atlantic, which provides a natural laboratory for contrasting iron speciation and subsurface oxygen conditions with the BATS region. Laboratory-based and shipboard incubation experiments will target the role that specific pools of organic ligands, dissolved organic carbon, and detrital particulate organic carbon play in water-column iron cycling. The resulting data, together with ancillary data provided by the BATS program, will be used to inform the biogeochemical model, thereby advancing our ability to model the global ocean cycling of iron and carbon, and better predict their sensitivity to environmental changes.