All animals need to breathe oxygen and we know that regions of the ocean that are losing oxygen are becoming more and more common. We’re seeing the marine animals leaving those areas.
Almost two dozen marine scientists from around the world have issued a warning about an often-overlooked side effect of climate change and pollution.
In a paper published this week in Science, they say oxygen is disappearing from increasingly large areas of ocean and threatening marine life.
The research, sponsored by an international body affiliated with UNESCO, finds the problem has been growing since the 1950s. Over the last 50 years, the amount of affected ocean has expanded by 4.5 million square kilometres to 32 million square kilometres of coastal and deep-sea water.