Ocean oxygen content is decreasing with global change. A major challenge for modelling future declines in oxygen concentration is our lack of knowledge of the natural variability associated with marine oxygen inventory on interannual and multidecadal timescales. Here, we present 10 annually resolved 200 year-long records of denitrification, a marker of deoxygenation, from a varved sedimentary archive in the North Pacific oxygen minimum zone covering key periods over the last glacial–interglacial cycle. Spectral analyses on these records reveal strong signals at periodicities typical of today’s Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Modern subsurface circulation reanalyses regressed on the positive Atlantic and Pacific Climatic Oscillation indices further confirm that North Atlantic temperature patterns are the main control on the subsurface zonal circulation and therefore the most likely dominant driver of oxygen variability in the tropical Pacific. With currently increasing temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes and North Atlantic, we suggest deoxygenation will intensify in the region.

随着全球变化，海洋含氧量正在减少。对未来氧气浓度下降进行建模的一个主要挑战是我们缺乏对年际和数十年时间尺度上与海洋氧气库存相关的自然变化的了解。在这里，我们展示了 10 个每年解析的长达 200 年的反硝化记录，这是脱氧的标志，来自北太平洋最低氧带的变化沉积档案，涵盖了最后一个冰期-间冰期循环的关键时期。对这些记录的光谱分析揭示了当今大西洋数十年振荡的典型周期性的强烈信号。现代地下环流重新分析对正大西洋和太平洋气候振荡指数的回归进一步证实，北大西洋温度模式是地下纬向环流的主要控制因素，因此最有可能是热带太平洋氧气变化的主要驱动因素。随着目前北半球高纬度地区和北大西洋气温升高，我们认为该地区的脱氧现象将会加剧。