FY 2008 Expanding oxygen-minimum zones in the tropical oceans Stramma, L., G.C. Johnson, J. Sprintall, and V. Mohrholz Science, 320(5876), 655–658, doi: 10.1126/science.1153847 (2008) Oxygen-poor waters occupy large volumes of the intermediate-depth eastern tropical oceans. Oxygen-poor conditions have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems because important mobile macroorganisms avoid or cannot survive in hypoxic zones. Climate models predict declines in oceanic dissolved oxygen produced by global warming. We constructed 50-year time series of dissolved-oxygen concentration for select tropical oceanic regions by augmenting a historical database with recent measurements. These time series reveal vertical expansion of the intermediate-depth low-oxygen zones in the eastern tropical Atlantic and the equatorial Pacific during the past 50 years. The oxygen decrease in the 300- to 700-m layer is 0.09 to 0.34 micromoles per kilogram per year. Reduced oxygen levels may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies. Feature Publications | Outstanding Scientific Publications Contact Sandra Bigley | Help
