By Jim Steele

For several years click-bait media has terrorized guilt-ridden people with headlines like “The Ocean Is Suffocating, and It’s Our Fault”. But there is hope! An open mind and critical thinking can free people from the shackles of their stupidity. The ocean’s oxygen(O2) content is dependent on atmospheric O2 concentration, photosynthesis, respiration and decay, temperature, and ocean circulation dynamics. Indeed, some regions can become so depleted in O2, those oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) are called “dead zones”. However, a lack of awareness or misunderstanding of the important dynamics blind people with undue fear.

Here are 7 dynamics to consider to overcome stupidity.

1. Misunderstanding atmospheric concentration graphs: Scripps has been monitoring atmospheric concentration for 3 decades and reports an O2 decline (graphic #1), which they blame on burning fossil fuels. Not being familiar with measurements of “per meg”, most people get scared by the graph’s steep decline. However, the graph’s scale exaggerates the dynamic. Scripps’ declining O2 trend of 19 ‘per meg’ per year corresponds to losing just 19 O2 atmospheric molecules out of every million each year. In more familiar and realistic terms, after 100 years O2 concentration would only fall from 21.00% to 20.96%, a very small and insignificant change that is not a threat to any living creature.

2. O2 Minimum Happens in Dark Colder Water: Global warming alarmists push the simplistic factoid that warmer water will hold less O2 . However, the red curve in (#2) shows oxygen is steadily depleted where photosynthesis stops and respiration and decay of organic matter in dark colder water continues to consume oxygen. Maximum O2 depletion happens around 1000 meter depths.

3. Offsetting CO2 fertilization effect: The highest concentration of O2 is in the oceans warm sunlit layer, the photic zone, (#2) where photosynthesis generates O2 by splitting water molecules. Some small OMZ regions sometimes develop at night but disappear the next day when photosynthesis resumes.

Photosynthesis produces the organic matter which is the foundation for all marine life. Ocean photosynthesis also maintains about 50% of the atmospheric O2 required by land animals and more CO2 promotes more photosynthesis. Scientists now report our current climate is driving more frequent and extensive phytoplankton blooms.

4. Misapplied Temperature Factoid: Illustrations #3 & #4 show the relationship between the latitudinal gradients of ocean surface temperatures and surface O2 . Warmer temperatures indeed hold relatively less O2 . The warm tropics average the lowest surface O2 relative to the colder polar regions. But declining O2 happens independently of that temperature gradient.

5. Nutrient Supply Drives O2 Depletion: Locations of coastal O2 depletion (hypoxia), red dots in #5, are more common in the more oxygen rich waters outside the tropics. This human caused hypoxia is due to respiration and decay of high nutrient sewage waste-water and agricultural run-off. Severe coastal hypoxia can indeed cause temporary but suffocating dead zones that remain for days or months throughout the warm summer. However only stupid people believe driving an electrical vehicle will stop coastal suffocation. In contrast, intelligent environmentalists understand the only real remedy is better management of nutrient run-off.

6. Natural Nutrient Upwelling Produces the Greatest Abundance of Marine Life: The decay and respiration of organic matter in deeper waters below the photic zone releases critical nutrients. Thus, deeper waters that are rich in nutrients will always be oxygen poor. Regions with upwelled deep water recycle those nutrients to the photic zone and produce the greatest profusion of marine life. However, climate alarmists ignore this wonderful bountiful dynamic, preferring to focus on scary narratives about the accompanying oxygen depletion.

The blue areas in #5 represent oxygen poor water at 300 meter depths, resulting in permanent subsurface dead zones. Graphic #6 shows these same regions happen where colder water with extremely depleted O2 is upwelled. The waters off the coast of Peru represent less than 0.1% of the world ocean surface but presently producing about 10% of the world fish catch; and simultaneously the world’s greatest OMZ.

7. Climate Change has Increased Ocean Productivity: Studies of ocean productivity off the coast of Peru determined oxygen levels were the highest during the Little Ice Age (#7) but correlated with the region’s lowest levels of productivity (#8). As upwelling and productivity increased after 1850, O2 levels plummeted.

Only stupid people would hope for reduced marine productivity to raise oxygen levels. But if plans by climate idiots like Bill Gates to dim the sunlight happen, it just might grant the stupid alarmists’ death wish.