Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming [View All]

[acmavm]

study says

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-deadzone15feb15,1,5305284.story?ctrack=4&cset=true


Piles of dead crabs washed onto Oregon's coastline after oxygen levels dropped too low to support bottom-dwelling sea life.
(Elizabeth Gates)

NEWPORT, ORE. -- -- Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.

Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera's unblinking eye revealed nothing at all -- a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.

"We couldn't believe our eyes," Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. "It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died."

<snip>

What's happening off Oregon, scientists believe, is that as land heats up, winds grow stronger and more persistent. Because the winds don't go slack as they used to do, the upwelling is prolonged, producing a surplus of phytoplankton that isn't consumed and ultimately dies, drifts down to the seafloor and rots.

"It fits a pattern that we're seeing in the Benguela Current," said Andrew Bakun, a professor at the University of Miami's Pew Institute for Ocean Science who wasn't part of the Oregon study. "It's reasonable to think these hypoxic and anoxic zones will increase as more greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere."

-MORE-

I left out parts (had to because of the rules) of this article that are important to read in order to understand the seriousness of the situation.