Co-Convenors:
Frank Whitney (Canada)
Evgeniy Yakushev (Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Norway/Russia)

Invited Speakers:
Steven Bograd (Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA-Fisheries, USA)
Felix Janssen (Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany)

Modifications to ocean circulation due to global warming are being observed broadly throughout our oceans. Surface warming of our planet reduces oxygen solubility in seawater, increases mixed layer buoyancy and reduces ice formation in important ventilation areas. All of these processes lead to a reduction in oxygen transport to the interior waters of major ocean basins and coastal seas. As a transition zone between the continents and the ocean, coastal waters are natural susceptibility to oxygen-deficiency and anoxia due to both the input of low density coastal water and topographic restrictions which can increase the residence time of bottom waters.

Oxygen depletion inevitably leads to biological impacts ranging from altered microbial activity (e.g., enhanced de-nitrification, N₂O production or sulfate reduction) to whole community displacements (loss of fisheries, invasions of displaced species into new habitat) which are poorly understood. As well, oxygen losses in the interior ocean are accompanied by increased acidity as carbon dioxide levels rise. These two trends may have synergistic impacts on biota. Contributions across these diverse topics, as well as on expansions of coastal dead zones caused by non-climate related change, are invited.