Could microplastics impact the ocean's carbon storage?

How microplastics affect Earth’s climate

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This is a news article from Chemical and Engineering News summarizing how microplastics may influence Earth's climate; it does not present original experimental findings.

Impacts of microplastics on terrestrial soil carbon dynamics

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This synthesis shows that microplastics disrupt soil organic carbon sequestration through multiple mechanisms, including leaching dissolved organic matter, altering microbial carbon pump efficiency, and creating hotspots that modify mineral-organic matter interactions within soil aggregates. As microplastics accumulate in agricultural soils globally, their interference with carbon storage could undermine both climate mitigation efforts and the soil ecosystem services that support food production.

The fate and impacts of microplastics in marine systems

Plastics and Microplastics: Impacts in the Marine Environment

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Plastics and microplastics have achieved near-universal distribution in marine environments from surface waters to deep-sea sediments, persisting for decades while fragmenting into increasingly smaller and more biologically available particles. The growing concentration of microplastics in oceans represents a long-term threat to marine biodiversity and the food safety of seafood consumed globally.

Far more microplastics floating in oceans than thought

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A new sampling method revealed that southern ocean microplastic concentrations are 37 times higher than previously estimated, suggesting that existing models have dramatically underestimated the scale of plastic pollution in Earth's most remote marine environments.