Sensitivity of simulated extent and future evolution of marine suboxia to mixing intensity

Geological and hydrographic records contain evidence of substantial past variations in the oxygenation of the global ocean. Numerical models predicts a future decrease of marine oxygen levels under global warming. Using a global biogeochemical-climate model in which diapycnal mixing is parametrised as the sum of the regionally heterogenous tidal and homogenous background vertical mixing, we here show that simulated total oceanic oxygen content and the extent of marine suboxia are both sensitive to the strength of background vertical mixing. Eight otherwise identical configurations of the model were spun up under pre-industrial conditions for different vertical diffusivities ranging from background values of 0.01 cm 2/s to 0.5 cm 2/s. This range corresponds to various observational estimates and to values currently used in numerical ocean circulation models. Whereas the simulated total oceanic oxygen content is larger for larger mixing intensities, the simulated suboxic volume displays a maximum at intermediate diffusivities of about 0.2 cm 2/s. The intensity of vertical mixing also determines the evolution of suboxic areas under projected 21st century CO 2 emissions: while all model configurations predict a decline in total oceanic oxygen, the simulated extent of marine suboxia shows a 21st century expansion only for mixing rates higher than 0.2 cm 2/s, whereas the suboxic volume declines for lower mixing rates despite an overall loss of marine oxygen. Differences in the poorly constrained mixing parameterisation can thus lead to qualitatively different estimates about the future evolution of marine suboxia under projected climate change

Wind synoptic activity increases oxygen levels in the tropical Pacific Ocean

The mechanisms controlling the variability of oxygen levels in the ocean are poorly quantified. We focus here on the impact of wind synoptic variability associated with tropical convective regions and extra‐tropical storms. Removing the wind higher frequencies of variability (2 days – 1 month) in an atmosphere reanalysis used to force an ocean model decreases wind stress by up to 20% in the tropics and 50% in the mid‐latitudes, weakening wind‐driven ocean circulation by 20%. Oxygen levels decrease by up to 10 mmol.m‐3 in tropical oceans and 30 mmol.m‐3 in subtropical gyres mainly due to changes in advective processes. While a large part of the tropical oxygen anomaly has local origins, changes in oxygen levels in the subtropical gyres modulate tropical oxygen distribution. Our study suggests that the “storminess” of the ocean is an important parameter that could determine the future evolution of poorly oxygenated regions

The riddle of eastern tropical Pacific Ocean oxygen levels: the role of the supply by intermediate-depth waters

Observed oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) in the tropical Pacific Ocean are located above intermediate-depth waters (IDWs), defined here as the 500–1500 m water layer. Typical climate models do not represent IDW properties well and are characterized by OMZs that are too deep-reaching. We analyze the role of the IDW in the misrepresentation of oxygen levels in a heterogeneous subset of ocean models characterized by a horizontal resolution ranging from 0.1 to 2.8∘. First, we show that forcing the extratropical boundaries (30∘ S and N) to observed oxygen values results in a significant increase in oxygen levels in the intermediate eastern tropical region. Second, we highlight the fact that the Equatorial Intermediate Current System (EICS) is a key feature connecting the western and eastern part of the basin. Typical climate models lack in representing crucial aspects of this supply at intermediate depth, as the EICS is basically absent in models characterized by a resolution lower than 0.25∘. These two aspects add up to a “cascade of biases” that hampers the correct representation of oxygen levels at intermediate depth in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and potentially future OMZ projections

Methods to evaluate CaCO3 cycle modules in coupled global biogeochemical ocean models

The marine CaCO3 cycle is an important component of the oceanic carbon system and directly affects the cycling of natural and the uptake of anthropogenic carbon. In numerical models of the marine carbon cycle, the CaCO3 cycle component is often evaluated against the observed distribution of alkalinity. Alkalinity varies in response to the formation and remineralization of CaCO3 and organic matter. However, it also has a large conservative component, which may strongly be affected by a deficient representation of ocean physics (circulation, evaporation, and precipitation) in models. Here we apply a global ocean biogeochemical model run into preindustrial steady state featuring a number of idealized tracers, explicitly capturing the model's CaCO3 dissolution, organic matter remineralization, and various preformed properties (alkalinity, oxygen, phosphate). We compare the suitability of a variety of measures related to the CaCO3 cycle, including alkalinity (TA), potential alkalinity and TA*, the latter being a measure of the time-integrated imprint of CaCO3 dissolution in the ocean. TA* can be diagnosed from any data set of TA, temperature, salinity, oxygen and phosphate. We demonstrate the sensitivity of total and potential alkalinity to the differences in model and ocean physics, which disqualifies them as accurate measures of biogeochemical processes. We show that an explicit treatment of preformed alkalinity (TA0) is necessary and possible. In our model simulations we implement explicit model tracers of TA0 and TA*. We find that the difference between modelled true TA* and diagnosed TA* was below 10% (25%) in 73% (81%) of the ocean's volume. In the Pacific (and Indian) Oceans the RMSE of A* is below 3 (4) mmol TA m−3, even when using a global rather than regional algorithms to estimate preformed alkalinity. Errors in the Atlantic Ocean are significantly larger and potential improvements of TA0 estimation are discussed. Applying the TA* approach to the output of three state-of-the-art ocean carbon cycle models, we demonstrate the advantage of explicitly taking preformed alkalinity into account for separating the effects of biogeochemical processes and circulation on the distribution of alkalinity. In particular, we suggest to use the TA* approach for CaCO3 cycle model evaluation

Ocean currents and coastal exposure to offshore releases of passively transported material in the Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico (GoM) is heavily exploited by the oil industry. Incidental oil releases, such as the 2010 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon platform, lead to a large scale dispersion of pollutants by ocean currents, contaminating the coastline and damaging the ecosystems. In order to determine whether the ocean dynamics hampers or conversely fosters the landing of material in the coastal regions, we simulate more than 29000 individual tracer releases in the offshore waters of the GoM. We assume that the tracers are not decaying and transported passively by the ocean currents. In a first part of our study we focus on the mean dispersion pattern of 80 releases occurring at the location of the Deepwater Horizon. In a second part, we generalize the metrics that we defined to the whole GoM. Our study shows that releases occurring in specific regions, i.e the bay of Campeche, off the Mississipi-Alabama-Florida and the West Florida shelfs are associated with higher environmental costs as the ocean currents steer the released material toward the productive coastal ecosystems and foster landings. Conversely, the tracers released off the Louisiana-Texas-shelfs and the center of the Gulf of Mexico are less threatening for coastal regions as the material recirculates offshore. We show that the coastline of the southwest part of the Bay of Campeche, the Mississipi's mouth and the Island of Cuba are particularly exposed as 70 % of the landings occur in these 3 regions

A novel estimate of ocean oxygen utilisation points to a reduced rate of respiration in the ocean interior

The Apparent Oxygen Utilisation (AOU) is a classical measure of the amount of oxygen respired in the ocean's interior. We show that AOU systematically overestimates True Oxygen Utilisation (TOU) in 6 coupled circulation-biogeochemical ocean models. This is due to atmosphere–ocean oxygen disequilibria in the subduction regions, consistent with previous work. We develop a simple, new, observationally-based approach which we call Evaluated Oxygen Utilisation (EOU). In this approach, we take into account the impact of the upper ocean oxygen disequilibria into the interior, considering that transport takes place predominantly along isopycnal surfaces. The EOU approximates the TOU with less than half of the bias of AOU in all 6 models despite large differences in the physical and biological components of the models. Applying the EOU approach to a global observational dataset yields an oxygen consumption rate 25% lower than that derived from AOU-based estimates, for a given ventilation rate

Major role of the equatorial current system in setting oxygen levels in the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean: a high-resolution model study

Understanding the causes of the observed expansion of tropical ocean's oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) is hampered by large biases in the representation of oxygen distribution in climate models, pointing to incorrectly represented mechanisms. Here we assess the oxygen budget in a global biogeochemical circulation model, focusing on the Atlantic Ocean. While a coarse (0.5°) configuration displays the common bias of too large and too intense OMZs, the oxygen concentration in an eddying (0.1°) configuration is higher and closer to observations. This improvement is traced to a stronger oxygen supply by a more realistic representation of the equatorial and off-equatorial undercurrents, outweighing the concurrent increase in oxygen consumption associated with the stronger nutrient supply. The sensitivity of the eastern tropical Atlantic oxygen budget to the equatorial current intensity suggests that temporal changes in the eastward oxygen transport from the well-oxygenated western boundary region might partly explain variations in the OMZs

Deep chlorophyll maximum and upper ocean structure interactions: Case of the Guinea Thermal Dome

Deep Chlorophyll Maximum (DCM) modifies the upper ocean heat capture distribution and thus impacts water column temperature and stratification, as well as biogeochemical processes. This energetical role of the DCM is assessed using a 1 m-resolution 1D physical-biogeochemical model of the upper ocean, using climatological forcing conditions of the Guinea Dome (GD). This zone has been chosen among others because a strong and shallow DCM is present all year round. The results show that the DCM warms the seasonal thermocline by +2°C in September/October and causes an increase of heat transfer from below into the mixed layer (ML) by vertical diffusion and entrainment, leading to a ML warming of about 0.3°C in October. In the permanent thermocline, temperature decreases by up to 2°C. The result is a stratification increase of the water column by 0.3°C m−1 which improves the thermocline realism when compared with observations. At the same time, the heating associated with the DCM is responsible for an increase of nitrate (+300%, 0.024 μM), chlorophyll (+50%, 0.02 μg l−1) and primary production (+45%: 10 mg C m−2 day−1) in the ML during the entrainment period of October. The considered concentrations are small but this mechanism could be potentially important to give a better explanation of why there is a significant amount of nitrate in the ML. The mechanisms associated with the DCM presence, no matter which temperature or biogeochemical tracers are concerned, are likely to occur in a wide range of tropical or subpolar regions; in these zones a pronounced DCM is present at least episodically at shallow or moderate depths. These results can be generalized to other thermal dome regions where relatively similar physical and biogeochemical structures are encountered. After testing different vertical resolutions (10 m, 5 m, 2.5 m, 1 m and 0.5 m), we show that using at least a 1 m vertical resolution model is mandatory to assess the energetical importance of the DCM

Patterns of deoxygenation: sensitivity to natural and anthropogenic drivers

Observational estimates and numerical models both indicate a significant overall decline in marine oxygen levels over the past few decades. Spatial patterns of oxygen change, however, differ considerably between observed and modelled estimates. Particularly in the tropical thermocline that hosts open-ocean oxygen minimum zones, observations indicate a general oxygen decline, whereas most of the state-of-the-art models simulate increasing oxygen levels. Possible reasons for the apparent model-data discrepancies are examined. In order to attribute observed historical variations in oxygen levels, we here study mechanisms of changes in oxygen supply and consumption with sensitivity model simulations. Specifically, the role of equatorial jets, of lateral and diapycnal mixing processes, of changes in the wind-driven circulation and atmospheric nutrient supply, and of some poorly constrained biogeochemical processes are investigated. Predominantly wind-driven changes in the low-latitude oceanic ventilation are identified as a possible factor contributing to observed oxygen changes in the low-latitude thermocline during the past decades, while the potential role of biogeochemical processes remains difficult to constrain. We discuss implications for the attribution of observed oxygen changes to anthropogenic impacts and research priorities that may help to improve our mechanistic understanding of oxygen changes and the quality of projections into a changing future