Contrasting Upper and Deep Ocean Oxygen Response to Protracted Global Warming

T L Frölicher,N Gruber,D Paynter,M T Aschwanden,S L Jaccard,J P Dunne

doi:10.1029/2020gb006601

T L Frölicher, N Gruber + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1029/2020gb006601

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Abstract

AbstractIt is well established that the ocean is currently losing dissolved oxygen (O2) in response to ocean warming, but the long‐term, equilibrium response of O2 to a warmer climate is neither well quantified nor understood. Here we use idealized multimillennial global warming simulations with a comprehensive Earth system model to show that the equilibrium response in ocean O2 differs fundamentally from the ongoing transient response. After physical equilibration of the model (>4,000 years) under a two times preindustrial CO2 scenario, the deep ocean is better ventilated and oxygenated compared to preindustrial conditions, even though the deep ocean is substantially warmer. The recovery and overshoot of deep convection in the Weddell Sea and especially the Ross Sea after ~720 years causes a strong increase in deep ocean O2 that overcompensates the solubility‐driven decrease in O2. In contrast, O2 in most of the upper tropical ocean is substantially depleted owing to the warming‐induced O2 decrease dominating over changes in ventilation and biology. Our results emphasize the millennial‐scale impact of global warming on marine life, with some impacts emerging many centuries or even millennia after atmospheric CO2 has stabilized.

Highlights

Dissolved oxygen (O2) is of fundamental importance for essentially all higher forms of marine life (Bindoff et al, 2019; Pörtner et al, 2014)
Earth system model (ESM) projections consistently suggest that the global ocean O2 content will continue to decrease during the 21st century (e.g., Bopp et al, 2013; Frölicher et al, 2009; Matear et al, 2000; Plattner et al, 2002; Sarmiento et al, 1998) but with some substantial regional differences, especially in the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs)
Our study suggests that a millennial‐scale recovery and strengthening of the deep Southern Ocean ventilation leads to a global ocean reoxygenation under long‐term global warming

Summary

Introduction

Dissolved oxygen (O2) is of fundamental importance for essentially all higher forms of marine life (Bindoff et al, 2019; Pörtner et al, 2014). The warming of the upper ocean combined with the climate change‐induced freshening of the subpolar regions leads to a general strengthening of upper ocean stratification (Collins et al, 2013; Manabe et al, 1991; Sarmiento et al, 1998) This reduces the downward supply of O2‐rich surface waters (Breitburg et al, 2018; Keeling et al, 2010; Levin, 2018; Oschlies et al, 2018), depleting O2 in the ocean's interior. These three aspects reinforce each other in the temperate to high latitudes, leading to very consistently projected

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