Impacts of seasonal variations of the Tropical Pacific ocean temperatures on upper ocean oxygen response

Abstract

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most dominant natural variability in the Earth system, which represents seasonal-to-interannual variations of the surface equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures and subsurface ocean interior. Impacting the physical upper ocean characteristics, ENSO exerts significant influences on the marine ecosystem, such as oxygen and phytoplankton concentrations via strong quasiperiodic oscillation between El Niño (warm phase) and La Niña (cold phase) events. The present study uses observational reanalysis and satellite data to investigate seasonal variations of ENSO and their impacts on marine biogeochemical processes. The results show that the oxygen and chlorophyll anomalies in the upper ocean exhibit different seasonal responses to ENSO. While both the summer and winter season biological responses significantly lag ENSO, the concentration of oxygen and phytoplankton during summer (winter) has no (large) concurrent covariability with ENSO. Given a strong negative correlation between chlorophyll-based indices and El Niño events, increasing mean ocean temperatures and ocean extreme events may induce lower upper-ocean oxygen levels, leading to possible risks in the ecosystem over the tropical Pacific Ocean.