“Simulated reduction in upwelling of tropical oxygen minimum waters in a warmer climate”*

Let’s pick apart this article’s title,
inaccessible to most people out there.
Even though we know it as vital
to communicate clearly, be able to share,
what goes on in iv’ry towers detrital,
to whom it is relevant, as well as where.
Since taxpayers pay for us, science and all,
we need to inform them without any brawl.

“Sim’lated” just means a model predicts.
“Warmer climate”, then, is scientists’ code
for “some time in the future”, but nothing fix.
Which means if we continue down this road
of putting more CO2 in the mix
“upwelling”, whatever that is, will be slowed.
“Upwelling” means that waters from the deep
up to the surface of the ocean creep.

“Tropical” means “going on in the tropic’”.
“Oxygen minimum waters” contain
low levels of oxygen, which are a topic
of discussion in the science domain,
because if levels sink down to “hypoxic”,
almost no life in the sea can remain.
Fate of dead animals and plants, in the end,
does on the oxygen levels depend.

Dependent on oxygen, chemicals form,
that can change climate as does CO2,
if they reach the atmosphere in a storm
or just by “upwelling”, out of the blue,
they make that further the climate will warm.
Therefore, it’s nice to know that the brew
of “oxygen minimum waters” will leach
more slowly to continents’ western beach’.

*This poem is in the “Ottava Rima” form and it explains the title of an article by Glessmer, Park & Oschlies (2011). The title of this article was also chosen as title to this poem.