Simulation of high concentration of iron in dense shelf water in the Okhotsk Sea

• We constructed an ocean-biogeochemical coupled model in the Sea of Okhotsk.
• The high concentration of iron in the intermediate layer is well simulated.
• Sedimentary iron is a main source of the iron in the intermediate layer.
• The western and central parts of the northern shelf are the potential source areas.

An ocean general circulation model coupled with a simple biogeochemical model was developed to simulate iron circulation in and around the Sea of Okhotsk. The model has two external sources of iron: dust iron at the sea surface and sedimentary iron at the seabed shallower than 300 m. The model represented characteristic features reasonably well, such as high iron concentration in the dense shelf water (DSW) and its mixing, which extends southward in the intermediate layer from the northwestern shelf along Sakhalin Island and finally flows into the Pacific. Sensitivity experiments for the solubility of dust iron in seawater suggest that a solubility of 1% is appropriate in our simulation. Higher solubilities (5% and 10%) result in too low phosphate in the northwestern North Pacific in summer as well as too high iron concentrations at the sea surface, compared with observations. Besides, these experiments show that dust iron hardly contributes to the high iron concentration in the intermediate layer. To investigate locations from which the iron in the intermediate layer originates, the fate of sedimentary iron input from four regions in the Okhotsk Sea was examined. Results suggest that the western and central parts of the northern shelf are important.