Oxygen Starving Of Earth's Oceans Due To Climate Change To Be Visible By 2030: Study

The impact of global warming on oceans is already apparent but will become more so by the turn of 2030, a new study claims.

According to UPI, researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research used computer simulations to differentiate between the effects of climate change and natural warming and cooling to determine large reduction in ocean oxygen in our oceans between 2030 and 2040.

"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, the study's lead author.

"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."

Data used from simulations for dissolved oxygen with varying temperature parameter. Researchers were then able to discern when climate change greatly reduced dissolved oxygen.

Ocean water is oxygenated by atmospheric oxygen and by phytoplankton through photosynthesis. Warmer waters on surface tend to absorb less oxygen and do not sink to the bottom as they are lighter than waters below. While natural warming and subsequent cooling of the oceans allows oxygen percolation to great depths, climate change induced global warming prevents oxygen from reaching depths. Its effects are already being seen even in shallow waters in some regions.

"We find that the forced signal should already be evident in the southern Indian Ocean and parts of the eastern tropical Pacific and Atlantic basins; widespread detection of forced deoxygenation is possible by 2030-2040," researchers wrote in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. The consequence of deoxygenated water is dead zones in ocean where marine life cannot survive, the researchers informed.