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Oceans Could Soon Not Have Enough Oxygen To Support Marine Life (iflscience.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As the climate continues to change in response to the increasing amount of carbon humans pump into the atmosphere, the oceans are being particularly hard hit from melting Arctic sea ice, acidification, and warming surface temperatures. Yet those are not the only difficulties that marine life has to deal with, as a new study reports that the oceans are also losing oxygen. As the majority of marine life relies on the oxygen dissolved in the oceans, it is worrying that noticeable differences have been observed in the gas concentrations in the world's waters. The reduction in oxygen will have profound effects on ocean biodiversity, though as the study published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles shows, not all regions will be affected in the same way or over the same period of time."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 lead author Matthew Long of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "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."
I propose the installation of a giant aquarium bubbler at the bottom of the ocean.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
The polar caps are melting. They are melting even faster than anticipated. However, if you do not trust scientists you can just measure the CO2 levels of your ocean next to you. It is not really difficult. You can google how to build a proper probe. Beside that you could trust the scientists, as they would all keep their jobs in case of no global warming, because we would still want to know how the atmosphere works, how the see works etc.
Look at the paper. It doesn't say that oxygen is decreasing to dangerous levels. It says that computers think that by 2030 it might be possible to measure a certain decrease in oxygen in certain places. The change is too small to measure at present, if that change is happening.
-The ocean is alkaline, which means that stronger base electrolytes (as compared to the weak carbonic acid) still dominate the charge balance.
however the ocean is becoming more acidic, and that trend will continue. saying it's still basic is not reassuring in the least.
-This is an El Nino year, the higher surface temperature will release more oxygen from the ocean because gas solubility decreases with increasing temperature.
chances are good that El Nino year's will become more common, in part because the oceans' average temperatures will contiune to rise. so we can expect the ocean to continue to lose more oxygen.
-Most of the world's oxygen comes from the phytoplankton [earthsky.org], and their population dynamics are remarkably challenging to model. However, if they are not dying en masse, then the oxygen production will remain about the same; some may be redistributed.
what is en masse ? do you think we could detect a population drop of 5% or 10% ? is that en masse ? would it affect ocean oxygen levels ? yes, yes it would.
-The sky indeed is remaining above us, and not falling.
oh it absolutely is falling. slowly perhaps, maybe it will take 1 or 2 centuries. maybe a lot less.
And your point is that I shouldn't listen to the warnings from scientists, because they're all hysterical, but i should listen you ?
so we should do nothing until we're sure we're all going to die or something ?
Absolute statements are never true