Global Warming Makes Marine Dead Zones Worse, Study Says

[NickB79]

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/global-warming-dead-zones-climate-change-study-20141111

A new study says that scientists underestimated the effects global warming is having on dead zones in bodies of water across the world.

When fertilizer runoff is introduced into a body of water, it brings added nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into the mix. These nutrients sustain microbes and algal blooms, creating dead zones that choke off oxygen availability to marine wildlife.

Scientists have long known that warmer water increases this problem, but a new study Nov. 10 in the journal Global Change Biology by Smithsonian Institution researchers found about two dozen different ways — biologically, chemically and physically — that climate change worsens the oxygen depletion. "We've underestimated the effect of climate change on dead zones," said study lead author Andrew Altieri, a researcher at the Smithsonian's tropical center in Panama.

The researchers looked at 476 dead zones worldwide, 264 of which were in the United States. They found that standard computer climate models predict that, on average, the surface temperature around those dead zones will increase by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit (slightly more than 2 degrees Celsius) from the 1980s and 1990s to the end of this century.

[RiverLover]

1. Tragic. How can anyone be for the industrialized animal & corn/soy food system? ~nt