Study shows climate change is reducing oxygen in rivers worldwide

Washington (AP) — Global warming is causing rivers to slowly lose oxygen, threatening fish and other lives in the waterways, a new study shows.

Researchers in China used satellites and artificial intelligence to track and analyze oxygen levels in more than 21,000 rivers across the globe since 1985. They found oxygen levels have dropped an average of 2.1% since 1985, according to a study published in Science Advances.

That doesn’t seem like much but it adds up and if it continues or accelerates, rivers in the eastern United States, India and across the tropics could lose enough oxygen by the end of the century to suffocate some fish and create dead zones, the study said.

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Chemistry and physics dictate that warmer water holds less oxygen, scientists said. Warmer water, thanks to human-caused climate change, releases more oxygen into the atmosphere.

If the oxygen loss rate continues at the current pace, the world’s rivers on average could lose an additional 5% of their oxygen by the end of the century.

Scientists worry that oxygen levels in rivers could fall so low that dead zones appear, as they have in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie. Those are areas where fish struggle to breathe and die.