Pacific Decadal Oscillation and recent oxygen decline in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean

Duteil, Olaf; Oschlies, Andreas; Böning, Claus W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-7111-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 23

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-7111-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-7111-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 23

Research article

|

29 Nov 2018

Research article |

| 29 Nov 2018

Pacific Decadal Oscillation and recent oxygen decline in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean

Olaf Duteil, Andreas Oschlies, and Claus W. Böning

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-7111-2018-supplement

Data sets

The global climatology of an interannually varying air-sea flux data set W. G. Large and S. G. Yeager https://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/nomads/forms/core/COREv2.html

Pacific Decadal Oscillation and recent oxygen decline in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean O. Duteil, A. Oschlies, and C. W. Böning https://data.geomar.de/thredds/catalog/open_access/duteil_et_al_2018_bg/catalog.html

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Short summary

Oxygen-depleted regions of the Pacific Ocean are currently expanding, which is threatening marine habitats. Based on numerical simulations, we show that the decrease in the intensity of the trade winds and the subsequent slowdown of the oceanic currents lead to a reduction in oxygen supply. Our study suggests that the prevailing positive conditions of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation since 1975, a major source of natural variability, may explain a significant part of the current deoxygenation.