Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters

Denise Breitburg; Lisa A Levin; Andreas Oschlies; Marilaure Grégoire; Francisco P Chavez; Daniel J Conley; Véronique Garçon; Denis Gilbert; Dimitri Gutiérrez; Kirsten Isensee; Gil S Jacinto; Karin E Limburg; Ivonne Montes; S W A Naqvi; Grant C Pitcher; Nancy N Rabalais; Michael R Roman; Kenneth A Rose; Brad A Seibel; Maciej Telszewski; Moriaki Yasuhara; Jing Zhang

doi:10.1126/science.aam7240

Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters

Science. 2018 Jan 5;359(6371):eaam7240. doi: 10.1126/science.aam7240.

Authors

Denise Breitburg¹, Lisa A Levin², Andreas Oschlies³, Marilaure Grégoire⁴, Francisco P Chavez⁵, Daniel J Conley⁶, Véronique Garçon⁷, Denis Gilbert⁸, Dimitri Gutiérrez^{9

10}, Kirsten Isensee¹¹, Gil S Jacinto¹², Karin E Limburg¹³, Ivonne Montes¹⁴, S W A Naqvi¹⁵, Grant C Pitcher^{16

17}, Nancy N Rabalais¹⁸, Michael R Roman¹⁹, Kenneth A Rose¹⁹, Brad A Seibel²⁰, Maciej Telszewski²¹, Moriaki Yasuhara²², Jing Zhang²³

Affiliations

¹ Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD 21037, USA.
² Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and Integrative Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093, USA.
³ GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, 24105 Kiel, Germany.
⁴ Department of Astrophysics, Geophysics and Oceanography, MAST-FOCUS Research Group, Université de Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
⁵ Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA.
⁶ Department of Geology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden.
⁷ CNRS/Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, 31401 Toulouse, CEDEX 9, France.
⁸ Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Mont-Joli, Québec G5H 3Z4, Canada.
⁹ Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE), Esquina Gamarra y General Valle s/n, Callao, Peru.
¹⁰ Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofıa, Programa de Maestrıa en Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima 31, Peru.
¹¹ Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, 75732 Paris, CEDEX 7, France.
¹² The Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.
¹³ State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.
¹⁴ Instituto Geofísico del Perú, Lima, Perú.
¹⁵ Environment and Life Sciences Research Center, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Salmiya, 22017 Kuwait.
¹⁶ Fisheries Research and Development, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cape Town, South Africa.
¹⁷ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
¹⁸ Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
¹⁹ University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Laboratory, Cambridge, MD 21613, USA.
²⁰ College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USA.
²¹ International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project, Institute of Oceanology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Ul. Powstancow Warszawy 55, 81-712 Sopot, Poland.
²² School of Biological Sciences and Swire Institute of Marine Science, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
²³ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.

PMID: 29301986
DOI: 10.1126/science.aam7240

Abstract

Oxygen is fundamental to life. Not only is it essential for the survival of individual animals, but it regulates global cycles of major nutrients and carbon. The oxygen content of the open ocean and coastal waters has been declining for at least the past half-century, largely because of human activities that have increased global temperatures and nutrients discharged to coastal waters. These changes have accelerated consumption of oxygen by microbial respiration, reduced solubility of oxygen in water, and reduced the rate of oxygen resupply from the atmosphere to the ocean interior, with a wide range of biological and ecological consequences. Further research is needed to understand and predict long-term, global- and regional-scale oxygen changes and their effects on marine and estuarine fisheries and ecosystems.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Biological
Animals
Aquatic Organisms
Conservation of Natural Resources
Environmental Monitoring*
Fisheries
Global Warming*
Oceans and Seas
Oxygen / analysis*
Seawater / chemistry*

Substances

Oxygen