Title
Recent Deoxygenation of Patagonian Fjord Subsurface Waters Connected to the Peru–Chile Undercurrent and Equatorial Subsurface Water Variability
Date Issued
26 May 2023
Access level
https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb
Resource Type
Controlled Vocabulary for Resource Type Genres::texto::revista::artículo
Publisher(s)
American Geophysical Union
Abstract
In recent decades, global dissolved oxygen (DO) measurements have registered a decrease of ∼1%–2% in oxygen content, raising concerns regarding the negative impacts of ocean deoxygenation on marine life and the greenhouse gas cycle. By combining in situ data from 2016 to 2022, satellite remote sensing, and outputs from a physical-biogeochemical model, we revealed the deoxygenation process in the Patagonian fjords for the first time. Deoxygenation was associated with the advection of equatorial subsurface water (ESSW) mass into the northern region of Patagonia. An analysis of the circulation regime using the Mercator-Ocean global high-resolution model confirmed the importance of the Peru–Chile undercurrent (PCUC) in transporting the ESSW poleward, contributing to the entrance of ESSW into the northern Patagonian fjords. A mooring system installed in the water interchange area between the Pacific Ocean and Patagonian fjords detected a decreasing DO of −21.66 μmol L⁻¹ over 7 years, which was explained by the increase in PCUC transport of 1.46 Sv. Inside the Puyuhuapi fjord system, a second DO time series exhibited more marked deoxygenation with −88.6 μmol L⁻¹ over 3 years linked with the influence of ESSW and local processes, such as DO consumption by the organic matter degradation. The recent deoxygenation registered in the northern Patagonian fjords demonstrates the significance of studying DO in the context of reducing the global oxygen content, further warranting the quantification of the impacts of deoxygenation on life cycles of marine organisms that inhabit the Patagonian fjords and channels and the Humboldt current system.
Language
eng
OCDE Knowledge area
Oceanografía, Hidrología, Recursos hídricos
Resource of which it is part
urn:issn:1944-9224
Source funding
El boletín científico “El Niño” es generado en el marco del Programa Presupuestal N° 068 “Reducción de la vulnerabilidad y atención de emergencias por desastres”. Producto 1: Estudios para la estimación del riesgo de desastres. Actividad 5: Generación de información y monitoreo del Fenómeno El Niño.
Sources of information: Instituto Geofísico del Perú Directorio de Producción Científica