Study: Climate change makes waterway dead zones worse

Dead zones in oceans, lakes and rivers are being exacerbated by climate change in more ways than scientists previously thought, a new study found.

Fertilizer runoff with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus is the main cause of dead zones, massive areas within bodies of water with little to no marine life.

{mosads}But researchers with the Smithsonian Institution found more than 20 ways that warmer water caused by climate change can exacerbate the problems caused by the nutrients, The Associated Press reported.

“We’ve underestimated the effect of climate change on dead zones,” Andrew Altieri, the lead author of the research released Monday, told the AP.

The researchers established a computer model that predicted the 476 known dead zones in the world would see an average 4 degree increase in temperature between the late 1980s to early 1990s and the end of the current century.

The largest temperature increase will be at the mouth of Canada’s St. Lawrence River, where it dumps into the Atlantic Ocean, the AP said.

The Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone will warm 4 degrees and the one in the Chesapeake Bay will get nearly 5 degrees hotter.

One of the prominent mechanisms researchers found that worsens dead zones is that warmer water holds less oxygen. But warmer water also keeps oxygen-rich water away from oxygen-deprived water, reducing the chances that they would mix.