GLOBAL WARMING LEADS TO UNDERWATER DESERTS" AND COASTAL DEAD ZONES

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1 GLOBAL WARMING LEADS TO UNDERWATER DESERTS" AND COASTAL DEAD ZONES Suhas E.P RVCE (VTU) No. 4/1 Golden Residency, Rmv 2 stage, Sanjaynagar, Bangalore SYNOPSIS Oxygen-poor waters occupy large volumes of the intermediate-depth eastern tropical oceans. Oxygen-poor conditions have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems because important mobile macro organisms avoid or cannot survive in hypoxic zones. Climate models predict declines in oceanic dissolved oxygen produced by global warming. Scientists constructed 50-year time series of dissolved-oxygen concentration for select tropical oceanic regions by augmenting a historical database with recent measurements. These time series reveal vertical expansion of the intermediate-depth low-oxygen zones in the eastern tropical Atlantic and the equatorial Pacific during the past 50 years. The oxygen decrease in the 300- to 700-m layer is 0.09 to 0.34 micromoles per kilogram per year. Reduced oxygen levels may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies. During the later part of the 20 the century, many estuaries, continental shelves, and enclosed seas around the world experienced a significant reduction of dissolved oxygen concentration in bottom waters, creating what are called dead zones. These are sometimes vast areas where, at least during the warmer part of the year, oxygen concentrations are too low to support fish, crustaceans and other animals. Eutrophication -the abundant accumulation of nutrients in ecosystem is often the cause of these dead zones, termed hypoxia where the concentrations of oxygen fall below 2mg/L, and anoxia where the presence of oxygen is virtually nil. 1. GLOBAL WARMING AND UNDERWATER DESERTS Oceanic dissolved-oxygen concentrations affect marine biogeochemical processes and have major impacts on the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. These concentrations are very sensitive to changes in air-sea fluxes and interior ocean advection, hence dissolved oxygen is an important parameter for understanding the ocean s role in climate. Important mobile macro organisms are stressed or die under hypoxic conditions; this is, when oxygen concentrations drop below 60 to 120 µmol /kg. Hypoxia occurs at different oxygen concentrations among various species of macro organisms, so the threshold is not precise. Regions with oxygen concentrations below 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 1

2 about 10 µmol /kg are termed suboxic. In suboxic regions, nitrate (if present) becomes involved in respiration. Anoxic regions have no dissolved oxygen. At present, the intermediate-depth low-oxygen layers, here called the oxygen-minimum zone (OMZ), are suboxic in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and the northern reaches of the tropical Indian Ocean and are hypoxic in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Oceanic dissolved oxygen concentrations have varied widely in the geologic past. For instance, paleoclimate records from the Cretaceous reveal profoundly altered biogeochemical cycles and dramatic consequences associated with reductions of ocean oxygen. The anoxic ocean at the end of the Permian (251 million years ago) is perhaps the most striking example, being associated with elevated atmospheric CO 2 and massive terrestrial and oceanic extinctions. Climate models predict an overall decline in oceanic dissolved oxygen concentration and a consequent expansion of the OMZ under global warming conditions, with the largest declines occurring in extra tropical regions. In the tropical regions, the models predict either zonal mean oxygen increases at depths of about 200 to 1000 m in the Atlantic and pacific Oceans or moderate zonal mean oxygen decreases. Predicted oxygen changes in the thermocline waters result largely from solubility changes in the upstream source waters, whereas changes in the deeper waters result mainly from decreased interior advection and ongoing oxygen consumption by remineralization of sinking particulate organic matter. The global ocean has warmed substantially over the past 50 years and strong interannual-to-decadal variations of oxygen have been observed in the upper 100 m. Long-term oxygen changes have been observed and reported in the sub polar and subtropical regions. For instance, in the subtropics Pacific at Ocean Station Papa (50 o N, 145 o W), declining oxygen concentrations have been reported from depths of 100 to 400 m between 1956 and Ocean oxygen data from the most oxygen-poor tropical regions of the OMZ are limited, but some regions exist for which historical date can be augmented with date from recent survey programs to construct relatively long quasicontinuous oxygen time series Researchers constructed and analyzed oxygen time series in some select areas of the tropical oceans, using qualitycontrolled historical data From the HydroBase 2 database and more recently measured oxygen profiles. Only oxygen data collected since 1960 were used because older oxygen data are rare and the net effect of changes in the observation system on our ability to document real ocean variability is not well understood. Unfortunately, even after 1960 oxygen data inmost tropical regions are too sparse to construct useful time series, because in the past most oxygen profiles were collected almost exclusively from ships dedicated to oceanographic research. Recently a small fraction of the 3000 Agro freely drifting floats that report vertical profiles of temperature and salinity over the upper 2000 m of the ocean via satellite at 10-day intervals have been equipped with oxygen sensors. These floats provide valuable oxygen profiles that were used to expand our time series through 2007 in the tropical Atlantic. 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 2

3 . FIG Climatological-mean Dissolved-oxygen concentrations at 400m depth using ocean data software The tropical ocean OMZs in the central and eastern tropical Atlantic and equatorial pacific oceans appear to have expanded and intensified during the past 50 years. Despite the sparseness of observations, the time series used show, that the decline in oxygen content has been most intense in the tropical Atlantic, where at present, hypoxic regions are small as compared with the Pacific and Indian Oceans. For these reasons, the Atlantic may also have the most potential for large increase in the area of hypoxic regions. The observations analysis presented here supports climate model predictions of dissolved oxygen declines in the tropical ocean and an expansion of the tropical OMZs due to a contribution of thermal, dynamical, and biogeochemical factors. The observed oxygen declines reported here of 0.09 to 0.34 µmol /kg a year for 300- to 700- m depths are somewhat smaller than those reported in the North Pacific at 100 to 400 m. Together, these trends affect carbon and nitrogen cycles, with fundamental implications for marine ecosystems and thereby fisheries resource management issues. Given climate model projections, and the geological record that indicates times of widely distributed suboxic regions, sustained global ocean measurements of dissolved oxygen 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 3

4 concentrations are needed (for instance, by equipping more Argo floats with well-calibrated dissolved oxygen sensors), to more closely monitor variations in the strength and extent of the OMZ. 2. GLOBAL WARMING AND COASTAL DEADZONES The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, extending west on the inner Louisiana Texas, continental shelf from the mouth of the Mississippi river, is perhaps the most famous. It has developed virtually every summer since the early 1970 s and can cover 22,000sqkm (Rabailas et al 2007). The deep hypoxic zone of the Baltic Sea is even larger and has become a year round, multi decade feature. Seasonal dead zones are prominent in the Chesapeake Bay, long island sound, many smaller us bay estuaries, and in coastal environments around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia. Some 169 of these hypoxic zones are increasing (Selman et al 2008). Although natural process can cause and contribute in the development of hypoxia and anoxia, most of these dead zones have developed or been exacerbated by human activities, particularly in the increasing of loading of nutrients nitrogen and phosphorous on various forms from land to the coastal waters, Phytoplankton microscopic plants that live in the water photosynthesize these excess nutrients through a process known as primary production,creating new organic matter where it decomposes and consumes oxygen in the process. Coastal waters prone to hypoxia are deep enough to experience density stratification. Whereby the mixing between the fresher, warmer surface water and saltier, cooler bottom water is restricted. Dissolved oxygen concentrations plummet in bottom waters, killing animals or requiring them to flee if Fish, crustaceans and shellfish are taken by predators as they live the relative safety of their bottom habitats. Biogeochemical changes enhance the return of nitrogen and phosphorous from sediments to the water column, refueling the fire of primary production of vicious cycle (Kemp et al). As a result, the important ecosystems these coastal environments provide are compromised. The more or less synchronous development of coastal dead zones around the world was closely linked with increased inputs of nitrogen and phosphorous from human activities, including agriculture, water discharges, and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen, resulting in the combustion of fossil fuels, and run off from urbanizing areas (Boesch, 2002). Reports on how climate change may already be influencing oxygen availability in the ocean, unrelated to nutrient loading from the human activities, underscores the sensitivity of ocean life to this great 21 st century challenge. Changes in the wind patterns have resulted in the shifts in ocean currents and deep upwelling causing hypoxia and mass mortalities in recent years along the inner shelf off Oregon and Washington coasts( Chan et al ) deep oxygen minimum zones tropical oceans vertically increased over the last 50 years ( Stramma et al 2008 ) 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 4

5 Future projections and current warning signs of the effects of global warming should provide a sense of urgency in our efforts to abate coastal eutrophication resuscitate dead zones. Healthy, resilient ecosystems will still be subject to change, but will allow better for better adaptation and management options. Restoring the wetlands within the watersheds of these coastal ecosystems and managing coastal wetlands in a ways that enhance their ability to build soils and migrate inland as sea level rises would preserve Or enhance their capacity as a sink of nutrients (Mitsch et al 2001). Also In the coming decades, if not years, there will enormous pressure to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are pathways that could produce ancillary benefits in terms of reducing coastal dead zones (for example, carbon capture and sequestration from power plants could also eliminate nitrogen oxide emissions). In any case it is now time to take climate change into account in our efforts to reduce coastal dead zones and to consider fully the collateral effects, including dead zones, in our efforts to slow global warming. 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 5

6 References and notes: 1. lothar stramma ( expanding oxygen minimum zones in the tropical oceans science 2008 ) 2. Donald F. Boesch ( National wetlands newsletter vol:40 no:4 ) 22 nd -24 th December 2010 Page 6

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