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Open ocean areas with no oxygen have grown more than 1.7 million square miles in the last 50 years, and coastal waters have seen a tenfold increase in low-oxygen areas in the same time. [23] Measurement of dissolved oxygen in coastal and open ocean waters for the past 50 years has revealed a marked decline in oxygen content.
Pacific Ocean sections of dissolved oxygen and apparent oxygen utilization. Data from the World Ocean Atlas 2009 . In freshwater or marine systems apparent oxygen utilization ( AOU ) is the difference between oxygen gas solubility (i.e. the concentration at saturation) and the measured oxygen concentration in water with the same physical and ...
Measurements of primary productivity in the ocean can be made using this ratio. The concentration of oxygen dissolved in seawater varies according to biological processes (photosynthesis and respiration) as well as physical processes (air-sea gas exchange, temperature and pressure changes, lateral mixing and vertical diffusion).
In the ocean by volume, the most abundant gases dissolved in seawater are carbon dioxide (including bicarbonate and carbonate ions, 14 mL/L on average), nitrogen (9 mL/L), and oxygen (5 mL/L) at equilibrium at 24 °C (75 °F) [122] [123] [124] All gases are more soluble – more easily dissolved – in colder water than in warmer water. For ...
The word oxygen in the literature typically refers to molecular oxygen (O 2) since it is the common product or reactant of many biogeochemical redox reactions within the cycle. [37] Processes within the oxygen cycle are considered to be biological or geological and are evaluated as either a source (O 2 production) or sink (O 2 consumption). [36 ...
Open ocean areas with no oxygen have grown more than 1.7 million square miles in the last 50 years, and coastal waters have seen a tenfold increase in low-oxygen areas in the same time. [34] Measurement of dissolved oxygen in coastal and open ocean waters for the past 50 years has revealed a marked decline in oxygen content.
The amount of oxygen found in seawater depends primarily on the plants growing in it. These are mainly algae, including phytoplankton, with some vascular plants such as seagrasses. In daylight, the photosynthetic activity of these plants produces oxygen, which dissolves in the seawater and is used by marine animals. At night, photosynthesis ...
[20] [21] The release of molecular oxygen by cyanobacteria as a by-product of photosynthesis induced global changes in the Earth's environment. Because oxygen was toxic to most life on Earth at the time, this led to the near-extinction of oxygen-intolerant organisms, a dramatic change which redirected the evolution of the major animal and plant ...