A News Feature article in Nature gives an alarming example of coastal hypoxia and pinpoints the need for oxygen monitoring to understand hypoxia causes and improve predictive capabilities
If somebody is still in doubt about the need to monitor oxygen and to better understand hypoxia formation in aquatic environments it is highly recommended to read an article by Virginia Gewin about hypoxia formation off the Oregon coast that was recently published as a Nature News Feature. For the past 9 years hypoxia has been observed in coastal waters that do not receive enough fertilizer runoff from the adjacent coast to explain the recurrent decline in oxygen concentrations by eutrophication. Instead the most probable reason for hypoxia off Oregon is a decrease in oxygen concentration in water layers that feed the seasonal upwelling. Whether or not this is directly connected to climate change is still under debate. One thing, however, is clear: in order to better understand and predict oxygen fluctuations it is necessary to improve oxygen observation capacities. A need that is certainly recognized by the hypox consortium...
Text: Felix Janssen
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