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Linking coasts and seas to address ocean deoxygenation

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 401–403 (2015)Cite this article

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Accelerated oxygen loss in both coastal and open oceans is generating complex biological responses; future understanding and management will require holistic integration of currently fragmented oxygen observation and research programmes.

Deoxygenation of the ocean is one of the major manifestations of global change. It accompanies ocean warming and ocean acidification as one of three primary ocean consequences of rising atmospheric CO2. For the past half century, the study of oxygen stress (hypoxia) — its occurrence, causes and implications for life in the ocean — has been an active area of research. But there have been two separate schools of study, one that addresses eutrophication-induced hypoxia in coastal ecosystems and another that examines naturally occurring oceanic hypoxic zones (including oxygen minimum and limiting zones, and their shoaling into coastal habitats). Each has developed with somewhat different emphases and tools, and largely in isolation of the other. Even within oceanic or coastal realms, geographically based management and funding sources have led to more geographically segregated interactions than might be ideal to stimulate advances in understanding, management and adaptation.

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Figure 1: Both coastal hypoxia and deeper-water deoxygenation are predicted to worsen with increasing global temperatures.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support for our deoxygenation research from NSF EAR-1234095, OCE-0927445 & 1041062, OISE-1204866 (sub-award from University of California Irvine) and NOAA award NA10OAR4170060-R/CC-04 to L.A.L., and NOAA-CSCOR awards NA10NOS4780138 and NA09NOS4780214 to D.L.B. We thank K. Gedan and L. Bopp for providing materials for figure production.

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  1. Lisa A. Levin is at the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0218, USA,

    Lisa A. Levin

  2. Denise L. Breitburg is at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, PO Box 28, Edgewater, Maryland 21037, USA,

    Denise L. Breitburg

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  1. Lisa A. Levin
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Correspondence to Lisa A. Levin.

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Levin, L., Breitburg, D. Linking coasts and seas to address ocean deoxygenation. Nature Clim Change 5, 401–403 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2595

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