Marine Science Faculty Publications
Declining Oxygen in the Global Ocean and Coastal Waters
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Keywords
Adaptation, Biological, Animals, Aquatic Organisms, Conservation of Natural Resources, Environmental Monitoring, Fisheries, Global Warming, Oceans and Seas, Oxygen, Seawater
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/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.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Science, v. 359, issue 6371, art. aam7240
Scholar Commons Citation
Breitburg, Denise; Levin, Lisa A; Oschlies, Andreas; Grégoire, Marilaure; Chavez, Francisco P; Conley, Daniel J.; Garçon, Véronique; Gilbert, Denis; Gutiérrez, Dimitri; Isensee, Kirsten; Jacinto, Gil S.; Limburg, Karin E.; Montes, Ivonne; Naqvi, S. W. A.; Pitcher, Grant C.; Rabalais, Nancy N.; Roman, Michael R.; Rose, Kenneth A.; Seibel, Brad A.; Telszewski, Maciej; Yasuhara, Moriaki; and Zhang, Jing, "Declining Oxygen in the Global Ocean and Coastal Waters" (2018). Marine Science Faculty Publications. 2329.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/2329
