Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 27 Issue 01

View Issue TOC
Volume 27, No. 1
Pages 168 - 171

OpenAccess

Oxygen Concentrations and Biological Fluxes in the Open Ocean

By Steven R. Emerson  and Seth Bushinsky  
Jump to
Citation References Copyright & Usage
First Paragraph

The oxygen concentration in the ocean is controlled by a delicate balance between the source from atmosphere-ocean interaction and net respiration of organic matter after the water leaves the surface and descends into the interior. Fossil fuel-induced warming is predicted in global circulation models to decrease both the subsurface oxygen concentration and the downward flux of organic carbon from the ocean’s euphotic zone, with strong geographic variability in the responses of both. Oxygen concentrations have declined over the past 50 years in the few locations in the ocean thermocline where accurate long-term measurements exist. These observations are not, however, sufficiently widespread to determine global geographic variability nor long enough in duration to discern whether natural variations or anthropogenic effects cause these trends. Our challenge is to understand the mechanisms controlling oxygen concentration and to verify the carbon and oxygen cycle feedbacks predicted in global climate models. The cornerstone for achieving this goal is to obtain global coverage of accurate seasonal oxygen measurements in the ocean. It may be possible to do this by augmenting shipboard hydrographic studies with remote measurements of oxygen concentration using profiling floats, gliders, and moorings.

Citation

Emerson, S.R., and S. Bushinsky. 2014. Oxygen concentrations and biological fluxes in the open ocean. Oceanography 27(1):168–171, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.20.

References
    Bopp, L., L. Resplandy, J.C. Orr, S.C. Doney, J.P. Dunne, M. Gehlen, P. Halloran, C. Heinze, T. Ilyina, R. Séférian, and others. 2013. Multiple stressors of ocean exosystems in the 21st century: Projections with CMIP5 models. Biogeosciences 10:6,225–6,245, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-6225-2013.
  1. Brewer, P.G., and A.F. Hofmann. 2014. A plea for temperature in descriptions of the oceanic oxygen status. Oceanography 27(1):160–167, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.19.
  2. Doney, S.C., L. Bopp, and M.C. Long. 2014. Historical and future trends in ocean climate and biogeochemistry. Oceanography 27(1):108–119, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.14.
  3. Emerson, S. In press. Annual net community production and the biological carbon flux in the ocean. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GB004680.
  4. Fiedler, B., P. Fietzek, N. Vieira, P. Silva, H.C. Bittig, and A. Körtzinger. 2013. In situ CO2 and O2 measurements on a profiling float. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 30:112–126, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-12-00043.1.
  5. Fulweiler, R.W., and E.M. Heiss. 2014. (Nearly) a decade of directly measured sediment N2 fluxes: What can Narragansett Bay tell us about the global ocean nitrogen budget? Oceanography 27(1):184–195, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.22.
  6. Jaccard, S.L., E.D. Galbraith, T.L. Frölicher, and N. Gruber. 2014. Ocean (de)oxygenation across the last deglaciation: Insights for the future. Oceanography 27(1):26–35, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.05.
  7. Stendardo, I., and N. Gruber. 2012. Oxygen trends over five decades in the North Atlantic. Journal of Geophysical Research 117, C11004, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JC007909.
  8. Takeshita, Y., T.R. Martz, K.S. Johnson, J. Plant, D. Gilbert, S. Riser, C. Neil, and B. Tilbrook. 2013. A climatology-based quality control procedure for profiling float oxygen data. Journal of Geophysical Research 118:5,640–5,650, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrc.20399.
  9. Whitney, F.A., H.J. Freeland, and M. Robert. 2007. Persistently declining oxygen levels in the interior waters of the eastern subarctic Pacific. Progress in Oceanography 75:179–199, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2007.08.007.
Copyright & Usage

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.