Oxygen consumption in the Eastern Mediterranean

Rates of oxygen consumption are determined by fitting simulated oxygen concentrations to observations from a medium-resolution survey of the Eastern Mediterranean in 1987 (METEOR cruise M5/6). The simulations are obtained with a previously described two-dimensional kinematic model of the sea, which is newly calibrated using concurrent hydrographic and tracer data, and with oxygen consumption as a function of depth being parameterized following previous work. The consumption rate is obtained as R(z)=22 (z/100) −2 +0.31 μmol/(kg yr) for z 1200 m depth) by the combined addition of surface and intermediate waters requires 150 years (±30%).