We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Reply on AC6
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the North Atlantic Ocean found tiny plankton (the base of the marine food chain) were almost completely missing at most survey points, while pollution, microplastics, soot, and "forever chemicals", was widespread in the ocean's surface film. Since this thin layer helps control how water evaporates into the atmosphere (affecting clouds and climate) and supports the plankton that anchor ocean ecosystems, its disruption suggests pollution may be quietly undermining both climate stability and ocean health, not just carbon emissions. This matters for us too: the same plastics and chemicals building up in the
Abstract. Climate policy treats carbon dioxide as the single lever on the climate. We suggest a second one has been overlooked: the marine biodiversity that builds and maintains the ocean surface microlayer (SML) and that pollution is now degrading. Water vapour, not CO₂, is the largest single contributor to the natural greenhouse effect and the strongest feedback on warming. The ocean supplies most of that vapour across the 71% of the planet it covers, and the thin biogenic lipid-and-surfactant film phytoplankton spread over the sea surface helps govern how readily it evaporates and forms aerosol. That same film gathers lipophilic "forever" chemicals, together with the microplastic and black-carbon soot they cling to, to levels far above the water beneath, where they turn toxic to the plankton that hold the ecosystem together. An automated image pipeline sized and classified 51,547 particles larger than 20 μm in 352 georeferenced surface samples from eight sailing vessels crossing the trade-wind North Atlantic. Zooplankton were absent from 93.8% of stations. Black carbon appeared at 89.8%, microplastic particles at 69.9%, microfibres at 22.4% and phytoplankton at 81.8%; 99.2% of everything counted measured below 200 μm. A separate 110-image, GPS-tagged crossing returned zero zooplankton at every point on the track, and a plankton net towed at the surface by day and by night confirmed the scarcity directly, returning roughly 0.2 to 0.5 animals per cubic metre – far below any productive ocean. In short, this surface layer is stripped of animal plankton and steeped in combustion and plastic residue. We trace what that may mean for the microlayer, for water-vapour feedback and cloud formation, and for ocean pH, and argue that cutting pollution has to sit beside cutting carbon.
More Papers Like This
Reply on RC6
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the Atlantic Ocean found that its surface, a thin film that helps produce water vapor and clouds, is packed with microplastics, soot, and "forever chemicals," while the tiny plankton that normally live there were almost completely missing. This matters because that surface layer helps regulate Earth's climate, and if pollution is wiping out the plankton that maintain it, our climate problem may be bigger than just carbon dioxide, it's also about ocean pollution reaching this critical layer, the same pollution that ultimately works its way into seafood and, potentially, our bodies.
Reply on AC4
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the North Atlantic found that the ocean's thin surface layer, which normally teems with tiny plankton and helps regulate water vapor and clouds, is now largely empty of these creatures and instead loaded with microplastics, soot, and "forever chemicals." This matters because that surface film plays a role in climate regulation beyond just CO2, and its degradation could affect weather patterns and ocean health, while the pollutants found there are the same ones increasingly detected in seafood and human bodies. The researchers argue that fighting pollution needs to be treated as seriously as cutting carbon emissions, not as
Reply on AC2
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the Atlantic Ocean found that its thin surface layer, which plays a key role in forming clouds and regulating climate, is nearly empty of zooplankton (tiny animals) but loaded with microplastics, soot, and "forever chemicals" that appear to be poisoning the plankton that normally live there. This matters because that surface film helps control how water evaporates into the atmosphere, so pollution damaging it could be quietly disrupting the climate in ways separate from CO₂, meaning cutting plastic and chemical pollution may be just as important as cutting carbon emissions.
Reply on AC8
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the Atlantic Ocean found that its surface layer, a thin film that normally teems with tiny plankton and helps regulate water vapor and clouds, is instead mostly empty of plankton and loaded with microplastics, soot, and "forever chemicals." This matters because that surface film plays a role in climate regulation beyond just CO2, and its pollution-driven breakdown could affect weather patterns, ocean health, and ultimately the food chain we depend on, suggesting we need to fight plastic and chemical pollution alongside carbon emissions, not instead of them.
Reply on AC5
AI summary Read the abstract
Scientists sampling the Atlantic Ocean found that its surface, a thin skin of water that helps produce clouds and regulate climate, is nearly empty of tiny animals (zooplankton) but loaded with soot, microplastics, and "forever chemicals" at almost every site tested. This matters because that same polluted surface layer plays a big role in water vapor and cloud formation, meaning ocean pollution may be quietly messing with the climate in ways separate from CO2, and it's a reminder that the same toxic soup coating the sea surface is also the stuff washing into the fish and water we consume.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.