Van Kemenade and colleagues from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Reseach (NIOZ) used molecular fossils from an ‘anoxic’ bacterium to trace periods of marine deoxygenation and nitrogen loss in the subtropical Northeastern Pacific ocean. They found that during the late Quaternary (the last ~160 thousand years), increased marine deoxygenation and loss of nitrogen occurred both during warm periods, especially in the Holocene, and during periods of maximum sea ice volumes. This is likely related to changes in ocean currents of the California Current System. These findings may help future predictions on the effect of global warming on marine oxygen concentrations and nitrogen cycling in the Northeastern Pacific.
Van Kemenade: “There is a very interesting, natural ‘dead zone’ there, that is relatively low in oxygen due to specific ocean currents from the poles and from the Equator. By looking at how that lack of oxygen over the past 2.5 million years has correlated with warmer and colder periods, we wanted to learn how that lack of oxygen might continue to evolve in the future under the influence of changing climate.”
NIOZ dedicated an interview to Zoë, where she gives many more interesting details about this publication: Additional nutrients intensify dead zones in oceans – NIOZ
Link to the publication on Biogeosciences: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbg.copernicus.org%2Farticles%2F21%2F1517%2F2024%2Fbg-21-1517-2024.pdf&data=05%7C02%7C%7C972df0c41fc2488c634d08dc4a86aa18%7C9a1651bf58af435b86a83e9334b4b732%7C0%7C0%7C638467189784000216%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oSuKEh61%2BJMZ%2FY0r0vcF5jpwPU1EguzSma0gP7bSVMY%3D&reserved=0
Link to Zoë van Kemenade’s linkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zo%C3%AB-van-kemenade-198a9bb2/
