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  • Perspective
  • Open Access

Tipping points of the ocean oxygen: A dynamical systems perspective

Amer Alsulami1 and Sergei Petrovskii2,3,*

  • *Contact author: sp237@leicester.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. E 114, 041006 – Published 23 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/w5c6-wnv8

Abstract

Global biochemical cycles of greenhouse gases have received a lot of attention over the past few decades because of their effect on climate and environment. Surprisingly, the turnover of oxygen received considerably less attention in spite of its truly existential importance: Apparently, any significant perturbation to the oxygen cycle may cause serious threat to humans as well as all animal species. Moreover, there is growing empirical as well as theoretical evidence that global warming can perturb the oxygen cycle considerably. In this Perspective, we discuss how this problem can be addressed using a dynamical systems framework. We argue that an insightful approach can consider a family of conceptual mathematical model that couples oxygen dynamics to vegetation (in particular, phytoplankton) and that produces oxygen as a by-product of its primary production and to the state of the global Earth climate. We show that the suggested approach predicts tipping points resulting in oxygen depletion and ocean anoxia as a response to a change in some environmental parameters. This Perspective leads to insights that help to address important issues largely overlooked in the literature and also suggests directions for future research.

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Phys. Rev. E 114, 041006– Published 23 October, 2026
  • Received 30 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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