Coastal hypoxia/anoxia as a source of CH₄ and N₂O

Abstract

Abstract. We review here available information on distributions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from major, mostly coastal, oxygen (O2)-deficient zones produced due to both natural processes and human activities (mainly eutrophication). Concentrations of both gases in subsurface waters are affected by ambient O2 levels. In the case of CH4, bottom-water O2 content probably affects emission from sediments, believed to be the main source of water-column CH4, as well as its oxidative loss in water itself. Highest CH4 accumulation (several μM) occurs in silled basins having anoxic deep waters such as the Black Sea and the Cariaco Basin. One to two orders of magnitude smaller, but still significant, accumulation also occurs in bottom waters of open margins experiencing anoxia and in silled basins containing suboxic/severely hypoxic waters. In highly eutrophic waters over open continental shelves (such as the upwelling zone off Namibia and the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico) high CH4 concentrations (several hundred nM) may occur in non-sulphidic waters as well, but in these regions it is difficult to differentiate the hypoxia-induced enhancement from in situ production of CH4 in the water column and, sometimes, large inputs of CH4 associated with freshwater runoff or seepage from sediments. Despite the observed CH4 build-up in low-O2 bottom waters, methanotrophic activity severely restricts its emission from the ocean. As a result, an intensification or expansion of coastal hypoxic zones will probably not drastically change the present status where emission from the ocean as a whole forms an insignificant term in the atmospheric CH4 budget. The situation is different for N2O, the production of which is greatly enhanced in severely hypoxic waters, and although it is lost through denitrification in most suboxic and anoxic environments, the peripheries of such environments offer most suitable conditions for its production, with the exception of semi-enclosed/land-locked anoxic basins such as the Black Sea. Most O2-deficient systems serve as strong net sources of N2O to the atmosphere. This is especially true for regions of coastal upwelling with shallow oxygen minimum zones where a dramatic increase in N2O production often occurs in rapidly denitrifying waters. Nitrous oxide emissions from these zones are globally significant, and so their ongoing intensification and expansion is likely to lead to a significant increase in N2O emission from the ocean. However, a meaningful quantitative prediction of this increase is not possible at present because of continuing uncertainties concerning the formative pathways to N2O as well as insufficient data from some key coastal regions.