Bangor University’s research vessel, the Prince Madog. Credit: Bangor University
New research shows that summer storms play a vital role in replenishing deep-water oxygen levels in the UK, which is crucial for maintaining marine health as global warming progresses.
Recent research conducted by oceanographers at the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, has demonstrated the critical role of oxygen ‘mixing down’ in sustaining healthy deep-water environments around the UK and beyond.
The groundbreaking research, published in 
Professor Tom Rippeth. Credit: Bangor University
These new results also have important implications for the proposed mass development of floating wind farms, in places like the Celtic Sea and northern North Sea, in pursuance of NetZero:
“The tidal flow passed from the proposed floating wind turbines will generate a turbulent wake which will mix down oxygen in the summer. This positive impact will improve ocean health. However, this new research highlights the need for the potential impacts of this modified mixing to be considered in the design of turbine foundations and in the spatial planning of new wind farms,” says Professor Rippeth.
Reference: “The deepwater oxygen deficit in stratified shallow seas is mediated by diapycnal mixing” by Tom Rippeth, Sijing Shen, Ben Lincoln, Brian Scannell, Xin Meng, Joanne Hopkins and Jonathan Sharples, 11 April 2024, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47548-2
The observations were collected as part of the United Kingdom (UK) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Carbon and Nutrient Dynamics and Fluxes over Shelf Systems (CaNDyFloSS) project, which forms part of the Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry research programme co-funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) through UK Research and Innovation grants.
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