Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters

Abstract

Beneath the waves, oxygen disappears As plastic waste pollutes the oceans and fish stocks decline, unseen below the surface another problem grows: deoxygenation. Breitburg et al. review the evidence for the downward trajectory of oxygen levels in increasing areas of the open ocean and coastal waters. Rising nutrient loads coupled with climate change—each resulting from human activities—are changing ocean biogeochemistry and increasing oxygen consumption. This results in destabilization of sediments and fundamental shifts in the availability of key nutrients. In the short term, some compensatory effects may result in improvements in local fisheries, such as in cases where stocks are squeezed between the surface and elevated oxygen minimum zones. In the longer term, these conditions are unsustainable and may result in ecosystem collapses, which ultimately will cause societal and economic harm. Science , this issue p. eaam7240

Keywords

Affiliated Institutions

• University of Liège BE
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute US
• University of South Florida St. Petersburg US
• Louisiana State University US
• Laboratoire d’Études en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales FR
• SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry US
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography US
• Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia PE
• University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science US
• Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research KW
• Polish Academy of Sciences PL
• Lund University SE
• Instytut Oceanologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk PL
• Smithsonian Environmental Research Center US
• State University of New York US
• College of Marin US
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique FR
• GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel DE
• Instituto del Mar del Peru PE
• Instituto Geofísico del Perú PE
• University of Cape Town ZA
• University of Hong Kong HK
• East China Normal University CN
• University of California, San Diego US
• University of the Philippines Diliman PH
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada CA
• York University US
• Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO FR

Related Publications