Studies conducted on ocean-related activity were published Thursday, presenting some rather alarming news about the rapidly expanding oxygen-depleted regions.

Researchers looked at the oxygen levels between 300 and 700 meters for their studies and explained that the process would soon spread to the surface.

According to an international team of scientists, the global warming is threatening sea life as the oceans are being constantly subjected to more and more heat with each passing day. The process was largely accelerated during the last 50 years and the most affected areas are in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific.

Gregory C. Johnson, the co-author of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, explained, according to the Associated Press, that warmer water cannot absorb nearly as much oxygen as colder water and that was the reason why sea life would begin to slowly disappear in the warmer oceanic regions.

Unfortunately, the continuous expansion of the oxygen-depleted areas will not only harm the sea life but also coastal economies, with entire industries depending on their daily shipments.

"Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved. The reduction in oxygen may also be caused by natural processes on shorter time scales," co-author Lothar Stramma from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany said, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.