Oxygen rise in the tropical upper ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

Simone Moretti^{1

2}, Alexandra Auderset^{1

3}, Curtis Deutsch⁴, Ronja Schmitz¹, Lukas Gerber¹, Ellen Thomas^{5

6}, Valeria Luciani⁷, Maria Rose Petrizzo⁸, Ralf Schiebel¹, Aradhna Tripati^{9

10

11}, Philip Sexton¹², Richard Norris¹³, Roberta D'Onofrio^{7

14}, James Zachos¹⁵, Daniel M Sigman⁴, Gerald H Haug¹, Alfredo Martínez-García¹

Affiliations

¹ Climate Geochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
² Istituto di Scienze Polari, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bologna, Italy.
³ School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁴ Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁵ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁶ Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienze della Terra, Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
⁸ Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra "Ardito Desio," Università Degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
⁹ Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹² School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
¹³ Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Present address: CNR, Marine Science Institute (ISMAR), Arsenale Castello 2737/f, 30122 Venezia, Italy.
¹⁵ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.

PMID: 38359106
DOI: 10.1126/science.adh4893

Free article

Oxygen rise in the tropical upper ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

Simone Moretti et al. Science. 2024.

Free article

. 2024 Feb 16;383(6684):727-731.

doi: 10.1126/science.adh4893. Epub 2024 Feb 15.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Climate Geochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
² Istituto di Scienze Polari, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bologna, Italy.
³ School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁴ Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁵ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁶ Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienze della Terra, Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
⁸ Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra "Ardito Desio," Università Degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
⁹ Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹² School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
¹³ Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Present address: CNR, Marine Science Institute (ISMAR), Arsenale Castello 2737/f, 30122 Venezia, Italy.
¹⁵ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.

PMID: 38359106
DOI: 10.1126/science.adh4893

Abstract

The global ocean's oxygen inventory is declining in response to global warming, but the future of the low-oxygen tropics is uncertain. We report new evidence for tropical oxygenation during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a warming event that serves as a geologic analog to anthropogenic warming. Foraminifera-bound nitrogen isotopes indicate that the tropical North Pacific oxygen-deficient zone contracted during the PETM. A concomitant increase in foraminifera size implies that oxygen availability rose in the shallow subsurface throughout the tropical North Pacific. These changes are consistent with ocean model simulations of warming, in which a decline in biological productivity allows tropical subsurface oxygen to rise even as global ocean oxygen declines. The tropical oxygen increase may have helped avoid a mass extinction during the PETM.

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Oxygen rise in the tropical upper ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

Affiliations

Oxygen rise in the tropical upper ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

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