Rapid deep ocean deoxygenation and acidification threaten life on Northeast Pacific seamounts.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic climate change is causing our oceans to lose oxygen and become more acidic at an unprecedented rate, threatening marine ecosystems and their associated animals. In deep-sea environments, where conditions have typically changed over geological timescales, the associated animals, adapted to these stable conditions, are expected to be highly vulnerable to any change or direct human impact. Our study coalesces one of the longest deep-sea observational oceanographic time series, reaching back to the 1960s, with a modern visual survey that characterizes almost two vertical kilometers of benthic seamount ecosystems. Based on our new and rigorous analysis of the Line P oceanographic monitoring data, the upper 3,000 m of the Northeast Pacific (NEP) has lost 15% of its oxygen in the la

SUBMITTER: Ross T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7693292 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature