In the race against climate change, many animals may not keep up

Our oceans are running out of air.

A new report, published this week, says that ocean dead zones—regions starved of oxygen—have increased by millions of square miles and quadrupled in size since 1950. Coastal regions with low levels of oxygen, caused by fertilizer and sewage runoff, have multiplied tenfold. Climate change is a likely culprit, as warmer waters carry less oxygen.

Oceans have some natural low oxygen regions, but they’re usually off the west coast of continents due to the coriolis effect . The dead zones in question are different—at least 500 dead zones have been reported near coasts, in particular. In 1950, that number was below 50.

Here’s Damian Carrington, reporting for The Guardian:

The analysis, published in the journal Science , is the first comprehensive analysis of the areas and states: “Major extinction events in Earth’s history have been associated with warm climates and oxygen-deficient oceans.” Denise Breitburg, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in the US and who led the analysis, said: “Under the current trajectory that is where we would be headed. But the consequences to humans of staying on that trajectory are so dire that it is hard to imagine we would go quite that far down that path.”

“This is a problem we can solve,” Breitburg said. “Halting climate change requires a global effort, but even local actions can help with nutrient-driven oxygen decline.” She pointed to recoveries in Chesapeake Bay in the US and the Thames river in the UK, where better farm and sewage practices led to dead zones disappearing.