Earth's Water Is Rapidly Losing Oxygen, and the Danger Is Huge
Scientists warn of rapid oxygen loss in Earth's water bodies, endangering aquatic ecosystems vital for food and income. Urgent global action is needed to address deoxygenation by reducing emissions and nutrient runoff.
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Scientists are warning that Earth's water bodies are rapidly losing oxygen, posing a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems crucial for human food and income. The decline in dissolved oxygen levels is attributed to factors like warmer waters holding less oxygen and excessive nutrient influx leading to oxygen depletion by algae and bacteria. This deoxygenation process is proposed to be included in the list of 'planetary boundaries', which define limits for sustainable human development. The impact of aquatic deoxygenation extends beyond marine and freshwater life, affecting global ecosystems and human well-being. Urgent global action is recommended to monitor, research, and mitigate deoxygenation by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient runoff, and organic waste inputs. The call is made to expand the planetary boundaries framework to address deoxygenation as a critical boundary to safeguard Earth's ecological and social systems.
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14 commentsThere's a different article, and to my mind a more readable one, here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240715135713.h...
> "Lakes and reservoirs have experienced oxygen losses of 5.5% and 18.6% respectively since 1980. The oceans have experienced oxygen losses of around 2% since 1960 and, although that number is smaller, it represents a more geographically and volumetrically extensive mass. Marine ecosystems have also experienced substantial variability in oxygen depletion. For example, the midwaters off of Central California have lost 40% of their oxygen in the last few decades."
If that holds true worldwide, and not just at a selection of measuring sites, it's a rapid and very concerning shift. It'll be interesting to see if their measurements are corroborated.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372847863_Anoxia_Be... is a previous paper, I can't find this. The author is qualified and has produced a good deal of original and field research on the topic.
This is a good example of where just reacting to a bad or clickbait headline would be to your detriment. This actually is new information and bad news.
I forget exactly how hypoxia and acidification are related but they're often mentioned together. For example, https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/warming-acidifica...
This paper seems to be saying that low Dissolved Oxygen can quickly turn into or make acidification issues worse, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4892234/
any other suggestions?
there should be more dissolved oxygen as water becomes warmer, i thought climate change was the big disaster we were supposed to be worried about?
less dissolved oxygen would suggest the water is cooler
CO2 is a potent fertilizer and is going to cause a lot of "blooms" and general more life which is going to affect oxygen levels. Loss of oxygen is a dampening effect on this.
Every environmental article has to be about "danger" instead of just stating facts about what is happening now.
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