Deoxygenation due to climate change threatens marine life
From the NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH/UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
BOULDER — A reduction in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the oceans due to climate change is already discernible in some parts of the world and should be evident across large regions of the oceans between 2030 and 2040, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Scientists know that a warming climate can be expected to gradually sap oceans of oxygen, leaving fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and other marine life struggling to breathe. But it’s been difficult to determine whether this anticipated oxygen drain is already having a noticeable impact.
“Loss of oxygen in the ocean is one of the serious side effects of a warming atmosphere, and a major threat to marine life,” said NCAR scientist Matthew Long, lead author of the study. “Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change. This new study tells us when we can expect the impact from climate change to overwhelm the natural variability.”
The study is published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.
Cutting through the natural variability
The entire ocean–from the depths to the shallows–gets its oxygen supply from the surface, either directly from the atmosphere or from phytoplankton, which release oxygen into the water through photosynthesis.
Warming surface waters, however, absorb less oxygen. And in a double whammy, the oxygen that is absorbed has a more difficult time traveling deeper into the ocean. That’s because as water heats up, it expands, becoming lighter than the water below it and less likely to sink.
Thanks to natural warming and cooling, oxygen concentrations at the sea surface are constantly changing–and those changes can linger for years or even decades deeper in the ocean.
For example, an exceptionally cold winter in the North Pacific would allow the ocean surface to soak up a large amount of oxygen. Thanks to the natural circulation pattern, that oxygen would then be carried deeper into the ocean interior, where it might still be detectable years later as it travels along its flow path. On the flip side, unusually hot weather could lead to natural “dead zones” in the ocean, where fish and other marine life cannot survive.
To cut through this natural variability and investigate the impact of climate change, the research team–including Curtis Deutsch of the University of Washington and Taka Ito of Georgia Tech–relied on the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The scientists used output from a project that ran the model more than two dozen times for the years 1920 to 2100 on the Yellowstone supercomputer, which is operated by NCAR. Each individual run was started with miniscule variations in air temperature. As the model runs progressed, those tiny differences grew and expanded, producing a set of climate simulations useful for studying questions about variability and change.
Using the simulations to study dissolved oxygen gave the researchers guidance on how much concentrations may have varied naturally in the past. With this information, they could determine when ocean deoxygenation due to climate change is likely to become more severe than at any point in the modeled historic range.
The research team found that deoxygenation caused by climate change could already be detected in the southern Indian Ocean and parts of the eastern tropical Pacific and Atlantic basins. They also determined that more widespread detection of deoxygenation caused by climate change would be possible between 2030 and 2040. However, in some parts of the ocean, including areas off the east coasts of Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia, deoxygenation caused by climate change was not evident even by 2100.
Picking out a global pattern
The researchers also created a visual way to distinguish between deoxygenation caused by natural processes and deoxygenation caused by climate change.
Using the same model dataset, the scientists created maps of oxygen levels in the ocean, showing which waters were oxygen-rich at the same time that others were oxygen-poor. They found they could distinguish between oxygenation patterns caused by natural weather phenomena and the pattern caused by climate change.
The pattern caused by climate change also became evident in the model runs around 2030, adding confidence to the conclusion that widespread deoxygenation due to climate change will become detectable around that time.
The maps could also be useful resources for deciding where to place instruments to monitor ocean oxygen levels in the future to get the best picture of climate change impacts. Currently ocean oxygen measurements are relatively sparse.
“We need comprehensive and sustained observations of what’s going on in the ocean to compare with what we’re learning from our models and to understand the full impact of a changing climate,” Long said.
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Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change
All said.
So essentially the point of this study was to attribute something to climate change aka CAGW rather than scientific study into O2 variability in the oceans, following the evidence no matter where it led them.
That they were unable to, despite not doubt herculean efforts on their part speaks volumes.
Scientists know that a warming climate can be expected to gradually sap oceans of oxygen, leaving fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and other marine life struggling to breathe.
This is absolute rubbish
N. Atlantic temperature in degrees C
Year ………. Feb ………. Aug
1860 ……….18.7 ………. 23.0
2014 ……….18.8 ………. 23.7
Ocean temperature from February to August in 2014 goes up by nearly 5C:
fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and other marine life are all breathing fine.
Ocean August temperature from 1860 -2014 (154 years) changed by 0.7C
fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and other marine life struggling to breathe.
Not meaning to nitpick, but they didn’t “follow the evidence”. All they did was program a computer to tell them that it’s worse than we thought. There is no sign of validation, at least not in the above report.
No validation, no validity, garbage science.
Hivemind, I think that’s exactly what Sunderlandsteve was saying. Parse it as:
So essentially the point of this study was “to attribute something to climate change aka CAGW” rather than “scientific study into O2 variability in the oceans, following the evidence no matter where it led them”.
All these sea animals “dying” and “unable to breath”, Have these people never heard of the word “adaptation’? The rates these levels change over decades allows that little thing to happen.
What happened to the colours in the most important parts of the world’s oceans? You know, the cold parts! For f-sake the Southern Ocean is not only cool but it is cooling! But let’s not get facts in the way of “good” story! ;-(
I think the colour scale is the wrong way round. The pink (=bad) end should be used for the areas where dexoygenation is predicted to be detectable earlier.
They say — “We need comprehensive and sustained observation of what’s going on in the ocean to compare with what we’re learning from our models.”
No actual data just modeling. Not the earth but science is in danger!
These people have modeled a planet on which they mentally live. They are not dealing with reality but things that they have imagined.
That is the essence of mental illness. One of the interesting things about metal illness is that a patient scores the highest on craziness tests when he or she is in the process of applying for a disability check. It seems applying for government climate funding has the same effect.
Eugene WR Gallun
OMG it’s worse than we thought!
We blame global warming!
/sarc right off
🙂
But Allan, there’s a plus-side! Just think, you’ll be able to stroll down to the beach and fill your bucket with ready-made bouillabaisse!
Aaaah! Bouillabaisse!!!
law of partial pressures rules how much Oxygen and CO2 are dissolved in water. Pure physics and chemistry. Variation of O2 & CO2 varies as high and low pressures move across the oceans. Low pressures O2 and CO2 released to atmosphere and High pressures more O2 and CO2 dissolved into the oceans.
Nope. Biology.
” it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change”
Yeah, for that you’d need to get out of your computer lab and do field work. Then you’d actually need to find deoxygenated water due to an increase in water temperature, not brought on by an algae bloom. And to find that you’d need to live in the Twilight Zone, hence, software-science was called upon instead.
Having read that comment I scrolled down till I found this.
To cut through this natural variability and investigate the impact of climate change, the research team–including Curtis Deutsch of the University of Washington and Taka Ito of Georgia Tech–relied on the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model,
I knew I could safely ignore it.
James Bull
Guess all the oceans died during the Medieval Warm Period and the rest of the 95% of the earth’s history when temps were higher.
Or perhaps the Mesozoic era, a 150 million year period, when the entire Earth – including the oceans – was packed with the most bountiful megafauna to ever exist on the planet.
Oh! No! No! — You see that is the distant past! They are worried about the distant future! You know, that time after their retirement when nothing that doesn’t happen can bite them.
Eugene WR Gallun
Or as Larry Tate used to say, “That was yesterday. Can’t keep living in the past.”
Another paper from the “Cambrian? Shmambrian! The earth was created in 1850” department.
Ignoring the obvious question how marine life evolved and thrived in global temperatures 10C higher than today with atmospheric CO2 in the 10,000-30,000 range.
leaving fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and other marine life struggling to breathe.
Hollywood style exaggeration, worthy of a dystopian B movie but shoddy journalism.
” … worthy of a dystopian B movie but shoddy journalism.”
You can say that again. And you can say that about all of climate “science”.
The B-grade movies I’m familiar with were fun and tongue-in-cheek: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, Night of the Lepus, Bug, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Toxic Avenger, and more. This trollop by tweakers playing with a computer is disastrous because it’s going to be used as evidence we’re all doomed unless we stop burning fossil fuels.
Actually, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) was serious and pathetic, almost to the point of being bleak. There was no happy ending…but the character was reconciled with the possibility that he would continue to live and find wonder.
Now, if you want a bizarre B-movie, I would recommend Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988).
Ptolemet2 you have given me a good idea.
Climate scientists bleating on about CAGW are essentially creationists who promote (and believe) the idea that the Earth and everything in it was created in 1850. All those traces of past ages are no more than distractions put there by Gaia to confuse the unbelievers. There was no megafauna. There is only the mega-stupid idea that anything existed before 1850.
Climate science is a lot easier than it looks.
I’m curious is there any evidence Oxygen was higher or lower in those epochs? Are modern crustacea etc thought to be different than their forbears?
And of course they have simply oodles of data from the bottom of the ocean to back up their models.
Bloke, let me help you with that:
“And of course they have simply oodles of data from their ‘bottom of the ocean’ model to back up their models.”
And lower atmospheric CO2 levels lead to lower O2 production by plant photosynthesis.
So there you have it. Less oxygen for the ocean either way.
Not true according to FACE research.
Morose, link please.
Does the model include terms for oxygen production by phytoplankton and land plants and the effects of increased CO2 on the productivity of these life forms? Or is it just a Henry’s law calculation.
O2 from ocean based photosynthesis is estimated to be around 50% of total O2 production. More CO2 in the water means more biomass which means more O2. Good thing, considering we need O2 just like plants need CO2.
Win, win.
I got a peek at the source code while I was visiting:
10 print “It’s worse than we thought.”
goto 10
No wonder the models are so bad. They are written in Basic.
OMG, it’s basic! Not even Visual.
Nitpick; you forgot the line number on your goto statemen 😉
DHR, I was curious too. According to the documentation, CESM does have an ocean biology module with several compartments: phytoplankton, cyanobacteria (nitrogen fixing), ‘dust’ (imported micronutrients like iron), detritus (lost CaCO3 from organisms like phytoplankton) and two layers, euphoric zone and below. Could find no validation evidence that the thing is realistic.
Freudian Typo: The “euphoric” zone is that place in Colorado where they cooked up this paper. The “euphotic” zone is the upper layer in the ocean where there is enough sunlight to support photosynthesis.
Colorado did legalize marijuana, so “euphoric” zone may be what he intended.
DHD. “Or is it just a Henry’s law calculation?”
It follows Berkeley’s Law: Whatever you are thinking, it is worse than you think.
Not just O2 production by any and all plant life (which grows faster/better as it gets warmer) but no mention of just how close to O2 saturation the salt water is now! Also, while it is true that warmer water is less dense, evaporation both cools and increases the salinity which makes it more dense. Higher salinity water sinks in lower salinity but cooler water.
But, we must not let any facts get in the way of our predetermined (by the grant money) conclusions.
This is the mark of shear desperation. Only two year olds fall for this kind of stuff, it’s called “magic”; it certainly isn’t science.
I have experienced real “MAGIC” when first held my new born son. I believe the term you were thinking of was “Magical Thinking” that is to be expected of climate quacks.
It’s just a natural response – try nappies (diapers) next time
Will look some more, but I am not certain what I think about a study that makes model claims about something that is not really noticeable now. “Widespread loss of ocean oxygen to become noticeable in 2030s”
I suspect that disparate ocean areas go through natural cycles of O2 flux, which may be what they are ascribing to your SUV in this study, but increased bio growth from CO2 can provide for more O2. Take this study for instance… http://www.co2science.org/articles/V18/nov/a5.php
“Elevated CO2 Simulates the Oxygen Production of Marsh Plants to the Benefit of Estuarine Heterotrophs”
===============================
“Consequently, in the words of the authors, “a new saltmarsh service arises as a crucial O2 producer for the estuarine aquatic community to accompany the role of these marshes as important carbon-harvesting primary producers”
================================
Wait…it just occurred to me David A-
“Widespread loss of ocean oxygen to become noticeable in 2030s” actually means “Maybe by 2030 we’ll actually find a way to measure how much oxygen is being “lost” by the oceans…” 🙂 sarc
So warmer oceans absorb less oxygen, but are becoming acidic because warmer oceans absorb more CO2?
Yes you’ve got it.
The atmospheric O2 concentration is dropping so if the ocean temperature also increases then the ocean surface concentration will drop even faster.
http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/sites/default/files/imce/ljo_o2_plot.gif
The atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising so even if the ocean temperature increases the ocean will still absorb more CO2 unless the temperature rise is considerable.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/SIOMLOINSITUTHRU2008.JPG
Phil, so we note that in 55 years, there would be one percent less 02, assuming there is no lag in the ability of bio-life to grow and produce more 02. We also note that this decrease has been happening for a very long time, much longer then the advent of the industrial revolution. (In other words there are multiple causes)
Now let us put this in terms we can understand. 02 concentration decrease due to elevation in the first 2 km (~6500 ft) above sea level can be approximated as linear. In this case, at a constant temperature, the rate at which oxygen decreases with elevation is about 10% per km. Thus in 55 years people at SL will, making a non scientific assumption of continuing trend, in effect experience the same 02 levels that people currently 328 feet higher experience.
The destruction of the rain forests is a significant contributing factor to this. Fertilization agricultural and industrial run off has not helped. All the wasted money on CO2 mitigation is preventing solutions for real problems. We could easily plant more trees and prevent harmful runoff and stop cutting down rain forests, and allow the greening of the biosphere to continue, thus also producing more 02.
02 flux has actually varied (15% to 35%) throughout millions of years of geological time. We are currently near the middle of this range. Here is a good summary of disparate causes and observations… http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pnas.org%2Fcontent%2F96%2F20%2F10955.long
David, I think Phil dot’s attempt at communal bedwetting is even worse than you stated. It’s 19 ppm/year or around 0.2% over 100 years – from the original Scripps pier data.
http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu
So warmer oceans absorb less oxygen, but are becoming acidic because warmer oceans absorb more CO2?
B I N G O !
That’s the money quote from all the comments.
A warmer ocean does indeed absorb less oxygen and less CO2, if the partial pressure of oxygen and CO2 remain reasonably constant. But if the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising significantly while that of oxygen is not, then a warming ocean could indeed absorb less oxygen and more CO2.
So it is definitely not the money quote.
Fe fertilization is the home run here.
removing CO2 and lift O2 levels.
Your comment beat me to it.
Not only that but extra CO2 is causing higher air temps which increases water temps which increases absorption into the oceans which decreases CO2 in the atmosphere which ……. (Oh, what a tangled web we weave: When first we practise to deceive!)
Warmer waters absorb less CO2, not more.
I thought warmer oceans absorb less CO2, like a warm coke bottle overflowing when opened.
The thing I don’t understand is the mass balance that they propose. Will a PPM increase in CO2 in the atmosphere drive a larger percentage increase in oxygen in the ocean, even though the atmosphere has orders of magnitude less mass than the ocean? So there’s a little more oxygen in the atmosphere from elevated CO2, but certainly not enough to cause a big drop of oxygen in the vast oceans. Where do they suppose all this oxygen goes? Maybe to the same place as the missing heat!
You are correct, Mr. R. CO2 is less soluble in warmer waters. But there is a Henry’s Law increase in CO2 from having more in the atmosphere above. I have never tried calculating the sensitivity of the two factors. Maybe I should get off my dead butt and try ti. Film at 11:00.
“it” not “ti.”
So in other words. Their model that was program to show CAGW causing oxygen depletion, shows oxygen depletion. Wow! That is about as scientifically important as the fact that turning on my oven causes it to heat up.
A model will do what it is program to do. The important thing is does the model react the way the real world does. Did they verify any of their model output with actual real word data? If not they should be forced to pay back all the money they got and have their degrees revoked.
Can you tell who farted in crowded elevator?
“The researchers also created a visual way to distinguish between deoxygenation caused by natural processes and deoxygenation caused by climate change.”
I doubt this on its face.
especially since they admitted, as Nylo above commented
=============
“Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change”
=================
challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change … which is the goal of the study/model … if they can’t attribute it, they can’t get more grant money … confirmation bias without even having to jury-rig the evidence, yet.
http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/units-and-terms
“Our reference is based on tanks of air pumped in the mid 1980s which we store in our laboratory. ”
So…..unless they can re-create in the real world, in every location across the globe in which they are taking samples today, to the exact, and I mean exact, conditions/specifications in which those “tanks of air” were collected in the mid-1980’s…how in Gaia’s name can they pretend to be able to compare today’s ocean oxygen levels with ocean oxygen levels in the past?
I ain’t no scientist, but even my farm bred primitive sense of smell knows what bullcr@p smells like no matter how fancy a lab it’s in!
I mean, don’t humans “de-oxygenate” the atmosphere with every single breath they take?
“Our reference is based on tanks of air pumped in the mid 1980s which we store in our laboratory. ”
Wonder what those tanks are made from? It ought to be gold. Pretty difficult to find anything else that will not oxidize at all even at ppm levels over a multi-decade period.
I can tell it was not me.
“When there are only two people in the elevator, both of you know who did it.”
G. Carlin
on no, shrimps are going to rule the world-
Shrimp that lives in water four times hotter than boiling point …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Shrimp-lives-water-times-hotter-boiling-point.ht...
Just something I ran across a while back. My wife loves her new aquarium, and wanted to determine the correct temperature per the fish she choose.
http://www.aquariumfish.net/information/warm_water_aquariums.htm
Once again it’s models all the way down.
Do these writers ever search the web.
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Ge-Hy/Hot-Springs-on-the-Ocean-Floor.html
?
David,
Here is a little more on oceans, oxygen levels and fish adaptation.
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/fishes/environment/environment_zones.html
Sigh – good thing we are still well within the natural variation that already happened since the end of the last full on ice age (we are still in an ice age). It’s been warmer, quite a bit warmer, 5 times since then.
Everything survived and we are still swamped by past natural variation. Only hubris in the guise of models creates the panic to drive political change or simply grant money.
Over and over again these mouth breathers complain – read, reach out for more ‘funding’ – about stuff that has happened …
over and over again.
Are you suggesting that the problem of oxygen depletion is caused entirely by mouth breathers?
Or is that only a partial factor in a more complex and interlinked system.
Perhaps bottom feeders are also to blame?
Didn’t we just have a paper recently where they measured a 10 times increase in plankton? A real measurement over 50 years. So what do these pseudo-scientists do? They ignore it. Nothing but more nonsense from this anti-science field.
Yet more solipsistic, welf-referential computer models. What I did not see was anything about actual measurements of ocean O2 levels, let alone how well the actual levels tracked the models.
This is utter garbage sweet jebus
More bloody doom heralding
How warm is the water here?
Marine Life Thrives in Unlikely Place: Offshore Oil Rigs – The …
http://www.nytimes.com/…/marine-life-thrives-in-unlikely-place-offshore-oil-rigs...
7 Mar 2016 – EUREKA OIL PLATFORM OFF CALIFORNIA COAST — Eight miles off the coast … and other rigs like it in the area are home to a vast and thriving community of … British Columbia — have made them perfect habitats for fish and other sea life. … While so-called rig-to-reef programs in the Gulf of Mexico have …
Breaking news! Garbage climate models crank out – garbage. Film at 11.
Tom Halla – you did see something about actual measurements of ocean CO2 levels. They said “Currently ocean oxygen measurements are relatively sparse.” In other words, there is negligible current, and probably even less historical data to support any supposition that there has actually been any change. If currently in any spot the oxygen level is X ppb you have no idea if it is increasing, decreasing or steady unless you have had a prior test in that same spot. And if the levels are “sparse” your data is at the best, poor.
Nothing here
moving on to another much more frightening story, not that there is much to see either
Monster black hole 3 billion times the mass of the sun formed by trio of colliding galaxies
At least there is a pretty picture
http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7359320-3×2-700×467.jpg
(or is it a giant shrimp struggling to breathe)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-27/monster-black-hole-formed-by-trio-of-colliding-galaxies/7359340
more ‘sciency’ stuff here
‘sciency’ stuff link
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.07537v1.pdf
That is Us and Andromeda in several billion years. I can’t wait. But more seriously, there is some thought that the sun was sucked away from the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy some time ago. The angle of rotation of the sun around the galactic core is consistent with that hypothesis.
Our high metallicity content suggests our gas disk is at least 3rd Gen, maybe 4th, in the supernova ovens.
Japan gives up on failed black hole research satellite (Update)
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-japan-black-hole-satellite.html
I like the dichotomy: Giant Shrimp
More garbage from people that have never taken an oceanography course or picture the ocean as, “it’s just there” and refuse to believe that it is a dynamic environment we do not understand! We know more about the moon than we do about the ocean. So to “conclude” that lower O2 levels will become detectable in….wait for it….yep 20 years time is absolute rubbish.
Why is every doom and gloom prediction on a 20 year scale? Has anyone ever asked that question? Maybe they should.
Cause once you get tenure, that is your remaining career span.
That reply is closer to the truth than any prediction from the alarmists I’ve ever seen!