Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific?
Subpolar gyre regions such as the Western Subarctic North Pacific (WSNP) contain sluggish, low-oxygen water, and are threatened by loss of oxygen (deoxygenation). Our simulations under RCP 8.5 emission scenario suggest that installing pipes to induce artificial downwelling and upwelling (AD and AU)...
Published in: | Frontiers in Marine Science |
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2021
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510/full |
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crfrontiers:10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 2024-02-11T10:08:59+01:00 Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? Xiao, Canbo Fan, Wei Chen, Ying Zhang, Yao Tang, Kai Jiao, Nianzhi 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510/full unknown Frontiers Media SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Marine Science volume 8 ISSN 2296-7745 Ocean Engineering Water Science and Technology Aquatic Science Global and Planetary Change Oceanography journal-article 2021 crfrontiers https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 2024-01-26T10:03:40Z Subpolar gyre regions such as the Western Subarctic North Pacific (WSNP) contain sluggish, low-oxygen water, and are threatened by loss of oxygen (deoxygenation). Our simulations under RCP 8.5 emission scenario suggest that installing pipes to induce artificial downwelling and upwelling (AD and AU) provides short-term solutions to combat deoxygenation in the WSNP. With no engineering, the WSNP's subsurface oxygen decreases by 30–100 mmol/m 3 by the year 2100. Continuous implementation of AD and AU instead counters this declining trend, and AD is more effective than AU. The oxygenation effect is primarily a consequence of how the two engineering schemes vertically redistribute oxygen via physical processes. AD directly improves oxygen at depth via advecting surface water toward the ocean interior and subsequent enhanced pycnocline mixing, and AU does so via generating compensatory downwelling outside of the pipes. Both schemes take near 40 years to complete the oxygenation. After that, oxygen reaches a new equilibrium state in the WSNP with no further improvement by the engineering. AD and AU both strongly increase primary production surrounding the deployment sites, but lead only to weak enhancement of aerobic respiration in subsurface water and thus a minor impact on the oxygenation. Other unwanted environmental side effects are negligible compared to those caused by rapid climate change within this century, including outgassing of carbon dioxide, pH decrease, and precipitation reduction. Article in Journal/Newspaper Subarctic Frontiers (Publisher) Pacific Frontiers in Marine Science 8 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Frontiers (Publisher) |
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crfrontiers |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Ocean Engineering Water Science and Technology Aquatic Science Global and Planetary Change Oceanography |
spellingShingle |
Ocean Engineering Water Science and Technology Aquatic Science Global and Planetary Change Oceanography Xiao, Canbo Fan, Wei Chen, Ying Zhang, Yao Tang, Kai Jiao, Nianzhi Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
topic_facet |
Ocean Engineering Water Science and Technology Aquatic Science Global and Planetary Change Oceanography |
description |
Subpolar gyre regions such as the Western Subarctic North Pacific (WSNP) contain sluggish, low-oxygen water, and are threatened by loss of oxygen (deoxygenation). Our simulations under RCP 8.5 emission scenario suggest that installing pipes to induce artificial downwelling and upwelling (AD and AU) provides short-term solutions to combat deoxygenation in the WSNP. With no engineering, the WSNP's subsurface oxygen decreases by 30–100 mmol/m 3 by the year 2100. Continuous implementation of AD and AU instead counters this declining trend, and AD is more effective than AU. The oxygenation effect is primarily a consequence of how the two engineering schemes vertically redistribute oxygen via physical processes. AD directly improves oxygen at depth via advecting surface water toward the ocean interior and subsequent enhanced pycnocline mixing, and AU does so via generating compensatory downwelling outside of the pipes. Both schemes take near 40 years to complete the oxygenation. After that, oxygen reaches a new equilibrium state in the WSNP with no further improvement by the engineering. AD and AU both strongly increase primary production surrounding the deployment sites, but lead only to weak enhancement of aerobic respiration in subsurface water and thus a minor impact on the oxygenation. Other unwanted environmental side effects are negligible compared to those caused by rapid climate change within this century, including outgassing of carbon dioxide, pH decrease, and precipitation reduction. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Xiao, Canbo Fan, Wei Chen, Ying Zhang, Yao Tang, Kai Jiao, Nianzhi |
author_facet |
Xiao, Canbo Fan, Wei Chen, Ying Zhang, Yao Tang, Kai Jiao, Nianzhi |
author_sort |
Xiao, Canbo |
title |
Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
title_short |
Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
title_full |
Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
title_fullStr |
Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Could Artificial Downwelling/Upwelling Mitigate Oceanic Deoxygenation in Western Subarctic North Pacific? |
title_sort |
could artificial downwelling/upwelling mitigate oceanic deoxygenation in western subarctic north pacific? |
publisher |
Frontiers Media SA |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510/full |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Subarctic |
op_source |
Frontiers in Marine Science volume 8 ISSN 2296-7745 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.651510 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Marine Science |
container_volume |
8 |
_version_ |
1790608661170618368 |