We Catalyze Oxygen Research.
We organize and fund research projects, task forces and national studies to address the knowledge gaps in basic science, global monitoring, and projecting of current and future states of oxygen depletion.
Research highlight: A committed fourfold increase in ocean oxygen loss, Nature, 2021.
Research highlight: Avoiding ocean mass extinction from climate warming, Science, 2022.
We are sponsors of the international oxygen conference “Low oxygen environments in marine and coastal waters“ 16-20 May 2022 in Liege, Belgium.
We coordinate with the new UN Global Ocean Oxygen Decade program.
Read our latest article in Scientific American:
GLOBAL OXYGEN LOSS: Schmidtko, S., Stramma, L. and Visbeck, M., "Decline in global oceanic oxygen content during the past five decades," Nature, 2017.
GLOBAL PHYTOPLANKTON LOSS: Boyce, D.G., Lewis, M.R. and Worm, B., "Global phytoplankton decline over the past century," Nature, 2010.
Key Science Questions:
What are the implications of the (recently identified) continuous decadal-scale global ocean mixed layer deepening and stronger pycnocline stratification on:
1.) documented phytoplankton global population decrease (~1% per year)2.) phytoplankton diurnal migration cycle?
3.) CO₂ and O₂ vertical transport?What are the sources, sinks and exchange rates of O₂ across all space and timescales given the cascading loss of O₂ in the ocean, and growing sinks in air?
What role do regional and coastal ocean and air circulation patterns play in air-sea exchange of O₂ and CO₂ across the full extent of the coupled boundary layer?
REFERENCES
PAST:
1. Mass extinction events and their association with oxygen loss:
o The “Great Dying” or Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction 252 million years ago that eradicated 90% of ocean species and 70% of land species was caused by global warming-induced hypoxia.
(A Grim Vision of Climate Change, Ocean Oxygen, and Geoengineering; Penn et al., 2018: Temperature-dependent hypoxia explains biogeography and severity of end-Permian marine mass extinction)
o The rapid CO2 emissions of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, considered an analog for the current climate crisis) were attended by life-ending deoxygenation.
(Yao et al., 2018: Large-scale ocean deoxygenation during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum)
o The late Devonian and Ordovician–Silurian anoxic conditions have been recently associated with the mass extinction of 85% of ocean life during those times
(McGhee, 2012: Extinction: Late Devonian Mass Extinction;
Lu et al, 2021: Periodic oceanic euxinia and terrestrial fluxes linked to astronomical forcing during the Late Devonian Frasnian–Famennian mass extinction;
Bond et al., 2020: Late Ordovician mass extinction caused by volcanism, warming, and anoxia, not cooling and glaciation | Geology)
o In the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, it is hypothesized that a geomagnetic reversal weakened the atmosphere and permitted atmospheric oxygen escape, leading to tremendous loss of life on land.
(Wei et al., 2014: Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction)
2. Moffitt et al., 2015: Paleoceanographic Insights on Recent Oxygen Minimum Zone Expansion: Lessons for Modern Oceanography
3. Stolper et al., 2016: A Pleistocene ice core record of atmospheric O2 concentrations
PRESENT:
1. Levin, 2018: Manifestation, Drivers, and Emergence of Open Ocean Deoxygenation
2.The Ocean Is Running Out of Breath, Scientists Warn
3. Jane et al. 2021: Widespread deoxygenation of temperate lakes. (summary)
4. Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950
5. Liu et al., 2019: Impact of anthropogenic activities on global land oxygen flux
FUTURE:
1. Long et al, 2016: Finding forced trends in oceanic oxygen
2. Sekerci and Petrovskii, 2015: Mathematical Modelling of Plankton–Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change
3. Livina and Martines, 2020: The Future of Atmospheric Oxygen
4. Oschlies, A., 2021: A committed fourfold increase in ocean oxygen loss; Sampaio et al., 2021: Impacts of hypoxic events surpass those of future ocean warming and acidification
LOSS MECHANISMS:
Ocean
1. Levin, 2018: Manifestation, Drivers, and Emergence of Open Ocean Deoxygenation
2. Limburg et al., 2020: Ocean Deoxygenation: A Primer
3. ibid
4. ibid
5. Li et al., 2020: Increasing Escape of Oxygen From Oceans Under Climate Change
Air
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_oxygen
2. Stolper et al., 2016: A Pleistocene ice core record of atmospheric O2 concentrations
3. Huang et al., 2018: The global oxygen budget and its future projection; Liu et al., 2019: Impact of anthropogenic activities on global land oxygen flux: Liu et al., 2020: Estimation of Gridded Atmospheric Oxygen Consumption from 1975 to 2018
4. Poulsen et al., 2015: Long-term climate forcing by atmospheric oxygen concentrations
5. Earth Loses Hundreds of Tons of Atmosphere to Space Every Day; Wang et al., 2021: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/abd559/meta; Moon's Been Getting Oxygen from Earth's Plants for Billions of Years
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
Sallée et al., “Summertime increases in upper-ocean stratification and mixed-layer depth,” Nature, 2021.
Morgan et al., “An atmospheric constraint on the seasonal air–sea exchange of oxygen and heat in the extratropics,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2021.
Lévy et al., “The crucial contribution of mixing to present and future ocean oxygen distribution,” Ocean Mixing, Elsevier, In press.
González-Dávila et al.. “The influence of island-generated eddies on the carbon dioxide system south of the Canary Islands,” Marine Chemistry, 2006.
