Abstract
Marine ecosystem is influenced by multiple factors under the global
warming. Increasing temperature raises the matabolic demand for oxygen,
however, its supply declines as the concentration of dissolved oxygen
decreases. Metabolic index is defined as the oxygen supply to demand
ratio for a marine organism, quantitatively combining the effects of
ocean warming and deoxygenation. A subset of the earth system models
participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6
(CMIP6) are used to calculate the century-scale changes in the metabolic
index under three different scenarios. Under the most aggressive warming
scenario, metabolic index can decline over 50\% at
northern extratropics including the US west coast. Overall magnitude of
the change is dependent on the emission scenarios, whereas spatial
patterns are model-dependent, in particular at low latitudes due to the
large uncertainty in projected oxygen changes.