Compilation of Fe and ligand data along the West coast of the United States

Compilation of Fe and ligand data along the West coast of the United States (Compiled by Anh Le-Duy Pham from current available literature as of April 2024)

USWC_Iron_Ligand_Compilation.xlsx: an excel file containing all the combined dFe and ligand data

USWC_IronLiganddata.mat: a MATLAB file containing all the combined dFe and ligand data

Update (June 2026): Addition of total dissolvable Fe data and merged/gridded products

This update expands the original dFe and ligand compilation to include total dissolvable Fe (unfiltered, weak-acid-leachable Fe) alongside the truly dissolved Fe (dFe, filtered) fraction, and adds merged hydrographic/nutrient and gridded data products.

• USWC_Fe_compilation_with_DissFe_260617.mat: updated MATLAB compilation file containing all combined dFe, total dissolvable Fe, and ligand data (1016 valid dissolvable Fe observations added alongside the existing 2974 dFe observations), plus station metadata (cruise ID, lat/lon, depth, pressure, date), distance from coast, and bathymetry (ETOPO1).
• comp_merged_gridded_with_DissFe_260617.mat: new file merging the Fe/ligand compilation with co-located hydrographic and nutrient data (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, silicate, ammonium, chlorophyll) from the same stations/casts, together with a gridded 3D product (gout3d) interpolating dFe, dissolvable Fe, ligands, and hydrographic/nutrient variables onto a common lon–lat–depth grid for regional analysis.

As with the original release, data are compiled from currently available published literature (updated as of June 2026) by Anh Le-Duy Pham.

Code.zip: MATLAB code and data to reproduce figures in Pham et al. (2026), "[Exploring iron processes in the California Current System through a regional dataset of dissolved iron and organic ligands measurements]" (EGUsphere preprint egusphere-2026-4502)

This repository contains the MATLAB scripts and underlying data files used to generate the figures in the associated manuscript, a compilation and analysis of dissolved and dissolvable iron (Fe) along the U.S. West Coast (USWC).

Contents:

• Data files: USWC_Fe_compilation_with_DissFe_260617.mat and comp_merged_gridded_with_DissFe_260617.mat — the compiled dFe, dissolvable Fe, ligand, hydrographic, nutrient, and gridded datasets used as input to the analysis scripts below.
• Figure-generation scripts: MATLAB scripts (make_maps_comp*.m, make_ideal_sections_v2*.m, make_statistical_profiles_v3_edit_diss.m, make_histograms_comp.m, make_correlation_matrix_dissFe.m, get_depth_distance_histogram.m, generate_seasonal_cycle.m/make_seasonal_cycle.m) that reproduce the maps, cross-shore/depth sections, vertical profiles, histograms, correlation matrices, and seasonal cycle figures presented in the manuscript.
• Water mass analysis scripts: Water_mass*.m and Spiciness_*.m scripts computing water mass properties (potential density, spiciness) used in the discussion of iron delivery pathways.
• Utility script: remove_data_on_land.m for masking/cleaning gridded output.

Dependencies: These scripts rely on several external MATLAB toolboxes/functions not included in this repository:

• The GSW Oceanographic Toolbox (TEOS-10) (functions gsw_SA_from_SP, gsw_CT_from_t, gsw_sigma0, gsw_spiciness0)
• The m_map toolbox (m_proj, m_grid, m_gshhs) for mapping
• The cmocean colormaps package
• In-house custom plotting utilities mprint_fig and sanePColor, developed by the author and not publicly distributed

Users will need to install the publicly available toolboxes above independently. For the custom mprint_fig and sanePColor functions, or any other assistance getting the code to run, please contact Anh Le-Duy Pham (anhlpham78@ucla.edu).