Developing a New Oxygen Atlas of the World’s Oceans Using Data Interpolating Variational Analysis

Abstract

Abstract We present a new global oxygen atlas. This atlas uses all of the available full water column profiles of oxygen, salinity and temperature available as part of the World Ocean Atlas released in 2018. Instead of optimal interpolation we use the Data Interpolating Variational Analysis (DIVA) approach to map the available profiles onto 108 depth levels between the surface and 6800 m, covering more than 99% of ocean volume. This 1/2° × 1/2° degree atlas covers the period 1955 to 2018 in 1 year intervals. The DIVA method has significant benefits over traditional optimal interpolation. It allows the explicit inclusion of advection and boundary constraints thus offering improvements in the representations of oxygen, salinity and temperature in regions of strong flow and near coastal boundaries. We demonstrate these benefits of this mapping approach with some examples from this atlas. We can explore the regional and temporal variations of oxygen in the global oceans. Preliminary analyses confirm earlier analyses that the oxygen minimum zone in the eastern Pacific Ocean has expanded and intensified. Oxygen inventory changes between 1970 and 2010 are assessed and compared against prior studies. We find that the full ocean oxygen inventory decreased by 0.84%±0.42%. For this period temperature driven solubility changes explain about 21% of the oxygen decline over the full water column, in the upper 100 m solubility changes can explain all of the oxygen decrease, for the 100-600 m depth range it can explain only 29%, 19% between 600 m and 1000 m, and just 11% in the deep ocean.