In open ocean, there may be potential change in Fe level, but such experiment in closed system has been found to have societal benefit by way of upgrading pisciculture practice.
Data List of diatoms identified from the Brackishwater ponds of I...
Kindly clarify your question. You want to Fe fertilisation for crops?
As a way to mitigate CO2 problem it is debatable because 1) small scale Fe fertilization studies so far have produced inconsistent results; 2) many of the ecological impacts are still not well understood. For details check out WHOI ocean fertilization webpage, and an opinion piece written by Sally Chisholm et al. (2001). WRT "pisciculture practice" one needs to bear in mind that even if Fe fertilization stimulates fish production without discernible harmful side-effects, promoting seafood production and CO2 mitigation are incompatible goals. To mitigate CO2 problem, excess biological production due to fertilization has to be sequestered to the deep ocean. To benefit from excess seafood production due to fertilization, the "fixed" carbon has to be extracted from the ocean and returned to land, and ultimately back to the atmosphere. I once heard a proposal from a company proposing "urea fertilization" to both solve CO2 problem and promote fishery yield at the same time. Unfortunately that idea was based on profit driven corporate thinking rather than accurate scientific understanding.
The issue is also of controversy in terms of ecolgocial safety. Actually no one knows excatly how the ecosystem in the open ocean react to the 'Fe' dumping, and it could casue tremendous negative feedback e.g. breakdown of the normal ecological balance in the very ocean and or outbreak of opernutistic species etc.
But what about closed system and then subsequent recycling through development of biodiesel or increasing surface feeding fish biomass?
Many researchers conducted experiments on Fe fertilization for climate change mitigation by promoting phytoplankton growth which can observe Co2. But it creates many problems in the coastal region or in Bays. But Fe fertilization is good for fish culture ponds.
That is an interesting topic. My research and the main literature I read is about natural iron fertilization, such as from sediment origin downstream from islands and dust/ash deposition into the ocean. Ecological safety is always an issue but also for this specific goal of geoengeneering, there is also the aspect of efficiency. Increased production must convert to increased long term burial of carbon rich particles - so how does the natural ecosystems respond to increased supply of iron? What are the effects of ocean circulation? Is the response for sustained supply different than for episodic supply? Studies on episodic supply are more numerous but it is hard to detect changes on carbon fluxes to seaflor. Perhaps the best way to understand both ecosystem and community impact is the studies of natural iron fertilization downstream of islands, such those developed on the Crozet and Kerguelen Islands.
There are very interesting articles about this topic, a few examples are:
Biogeochemistry: The great iron dump
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/487305a
How deep is deep enough? Ocean iron fertilization and carbon sequestration in the Southern Ocean
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2013GL058799
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