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Will ocean zones with low oxygen levels expand or shrink?

Computer simulations show that areas of the ocean that have low levels of dissolved oxygen will expand, but then shrink, in response to global warming — adding to an emerging picture of the finely balanced processes involved.
  1. Laure Resplandy

    1. Laure Resplandy is in the Department of Geosciences, Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.

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Global warming has reduced the amount of dissolved oxygen in the ocean by 2% since 19601. A major concern is that the rate of loss of dissolved oxygen has already increased by up to 20% in tropical waters, expanding the volume of regions called oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), where levels of dissolved oxygen are already very low2,3. The expansion of tropical OMZs threatens the survival of marine organisms that rely on dissolved oxygen for respiration, and affects the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nitrogen, potentially amplifying global warming4. Writing in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Fu et al.5 suggest that, in the long term, tropical OMZs might shrink after their initial expansion, reversing their impact on warming.

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Nature 557, 314-315 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05034-y

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