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This type of ocean deoxygenation is also called dead zones. Secondly, ocean deoxygenation occurs also in the open ocean. In that part of the ocean, there is nowadays an ongoing reduction in oxygen levels. As a result, the naturally occurring low oxygen areas (so called oxygen minimum zones (OMZs)) are now expanding slowly. [4]
In OMZs oxygen concentration drops to levels <10 nM at the base of the oxycline and can remain anoxic for over 700 m depth. [7] This lack of oxygen can be reinforced or increased due to physical processes changing oxygen supply such as eddy-driven advection, [7] sluggish ventilation, [8] increases in ocean stratification, and increases in ocean temperature which reduces oxygen solubility.
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.
Many organisms require hypoxic conditions. Oxygen is poisonous to anaerobic bacteria for example. [3] Oxygen depletion is typically expressed as a percentage of the oxygen that would dissolve in the water at the prevailing temperature and salinity. A system with low concentration—in the range between 1 and 30% saturation—is called hypoxic ...
A decline in dissolved oxygen, and hence in the oxygen supply to the ocean interior, is a likely effect of the increase in stratification in the upper ocean. [15] Since oxygen plays a direct and important role in the cycles of carbon, nitrogen and many other elements such as phosphorus, iron and magnesium, de-oxygenation will have large ...
Warmer water cannot contain as much oxygen as cold water. Increased thermal stratification may reduce the supply of oxygen from the surface waters to deeper waters. This would further decrease the water's oxygen content. [42] This process is called ocean deoxygenation. The ocean has already lost oxygen throughout the water column.
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 ...
The oxygen consumption due to respiration of most of the sinking organic matter and lack of gas exchange, often creates an oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) in the mesopelagic. The mesopelagic OMZ is particularly severe in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and tropical Indian Ocean due to poor ventilation and high rates of organic carbon export to the ...