Earth's Water Is Rapidly Losing Oxygen, And The Danger Is Huge

Supplies of dissolved oxygen in bodies of water across the globe are dwindling rapidly, and scientists say it's one of the greatest risks to Earth's life support system.

Just as atmospheric oxygen is vital for animals like ourselves, dissolved oxygen (DO) in water is essential for healthy aquatic ecosystems, whether freshwater or marine. With billions of people relying on marine and freshwater habitats for food and income, it's concerning these ecosystems' oxygen has been substantially and rapidly declining.

A team of scientists is proposing that aquatic deoxygenation be added to the list of 'planetary boundaries', which in its latest form describes nine domains that impose thresholds "within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come."

So far, the planetary boundaries are climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, interference with the global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, rate of biodiversity loss, global freshwater use, land-system change, aerosol loading, and chemical pollution.

(Azote/Stockholm Resilience Centre/CC BY-NC-ND 3.0/Richardson et al., 2023)

A team led by freshwater ecologist Kevin Rose from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US is concerned that this list overlooks one of the Earth's most important limits.

"The observed deoxygenation of the Earth's freshwater and marine ecosystems represents an additional planetary boundary process," the authors write, "that is critical to the integrity of Earth's ecological and social systems, and both regulates and responds to ongoing changes in other planetary boundary processes.

"Relevant, critical oxygen thresholds are being approached at rates comparable to other planetary boundary processes."

The concentration of dissolved oxygen in water drops for a number of reasons. Warmer waters can't hold as much dissolved oxygen, for instance, and with greenhouse gas emissions continuing to raise air and water temperatures above their long-term averages, surface waters are becoming less able to hold on to this vital element.

Dissolved oxygen can also be depleted by aquatic life faster than it is replenished by the ecosystem's producers. Algal blooms and bacterial booms triggered by an influx of organic matter and nutrients in the form of agricultural and domestic fertilizers, sewage, and industrial waste, quickly soak up available dissolved oxygen.

Attached link

Taxonomy

• Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)
• Standard Oxygen Transfer Rate (SOTR)

1 Comment

1. I'm sorry I believe the Stockholm Resilience Center is part of a doomsday cult! Let me elaborate! My specialty is Nitrogen and Hydrocarbon type Energy! In the process i found that Lightning Plasma, Nitrogen Fixing Plants and Soil Microbes and Geochemical weathering and Biomass Decay/Excrement all contribute to the natural cycles, and even algae blooms and zooplankton - and the cycle of biological materials falling to seabeds and lakes, only to denitrify with organisms, and the water to be stirred up? What diffusion of Oxygen takes place on the surface, and what Oxygen gets circulted by the warm and cold currents and thermohaline circulation? We do not even have accurate weather records, and Earth is a fraction of the size of the Oceans!!  
   How is the Oceanic water oxygen system only related to algal/bacterial processes?  Oxygen?? Have you been surfing anywhere before? Been into 5 meter seas or sitting in an institution as a Postgrad with keywords searches in academic journals perusing studies funded by the organisations that benefit from taxing the public?? 
   In summer and winter. The processes of overturning and oxygen uptake through the surface and storms crashing waves like 100 foot high into islands and coastlines in the Southern Ocean? Look at the Hebrides in Winter and go and measure the Oxygen levels. 
   If you choose to spend a few days in summer looking for the algal blooms and anoxic die offs - lets treat point sources and improve eco friendly buffer strips on farms and tertiary wastewater treatment. 
   Carbon - is a plant food and we are at the lowest CO2 concentrations in tens of millions of years. The lowest CO2 concentrations have resulted in mass extinctions, and high CO2 levels in biomass flourishing. I do not want the climate terraformed by removing further CO2 leaving an artificial Climate with all the waste aerial dumped daily on all Nato countries. 
   Ocean Acidification is another scare tactic. Where have the snails lost their shells?
   
   We can talk about Exponential Increase in Electromagnetic Radiation from Terrestrial, Near, Mid and Outer Earth Orbit. Saturation. Nano particulate and synthetic biology contamination from continent sized chemical production of masks and aerial dumping and adulterated food look at Graphene as "Fertilizer" its a kind of Smart Dust violation of the earth with extremely harmful consequences such as sterility and bioaccumulation. 
   
   I believe the aim is to paint Western Civilization as harmful and then take the Commons the Countryside and limit us to a Carbon Allowance,, a Nitrogen Footprint and restrict Mankind to Geofenced Radius in Concentration Camps called retrofitted cities with NO CARS, No International Trips, No Cows or Sheep, No Conventional Farming only Precision Fermented Synthetic Nano food or protein from Worms fed on Styrofoam. Recycled Sewage Water, Sewage Sludge fed Maggot rations. 
   Beware! I have been observing the affiliations of this organisation for decades and strongly disagre with their Planetary Boundaries type of selective interpretation of certain narratives. 
   Look: were told its a mass extinction, then that we are discovering new species every day and have millions more to discover. Polar bears are doing well  Great Barrier Reef is Flourishing, Amazon is Greening and yes look at Crop Yields with CO2 increasing, and yes the Earth is Greening. 
   https://www.activistpost.com/2024/07/the-rockefellers-created-990-climate-change-institutions-foundations-and-activist-groups.html
   
   I believe we are great earth stewards and the West is among the most responsible in clean systems and biological and technological solutions to exceedences, and adequate self regulation. 
   This One Size fits All - Act Local Think Global- is not working! It is a tool for the U N that signed an agreement to reduce the Worlds population by 95% and this is UNacceptable, and the Environmental Alarmism is but one of their Narratives to try Justify their Psycopathy. 
   I am an Environmental Steward, a Custodian and opposed to Environmentalism and Trust The Science.  

   U N targets for population control - the conference was in Cairo!! 
   https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs153/m1/1/high_res_d/94-533_1994Aug25.html  https://press.un.org/en/2004/pop897.doc.htm   https://www.jstor.org/stable/2137493  https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/icpd_global04_summary_eng_0.pdf

   Overpopulation Hoax
   OVERPOPULATION HOAX
   https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/06/04/dont-fall
   overpopulation-hoax/369143001/
   https://www.usccb.org/committees/pro-life-activities/myth-overpopulation-and-folks
   who-brought-it-you
   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear
   overpopulation-180967499
   https://canucklaw.ca/barcelona-declaration-kalergi-plan-destruction-of-europe/
   
   Keep your heads up - the Earth is doing fantastically and we are good Earth Stewards and you make me proud by applying the best of science and engineering to maintain World Leading systems to maintain the Ecosystems!!