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Comment on egusphere-2023-1624
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This comment paper revisits subsurface microplastic transport in the ocean using fluid dynamics modeling frameworks. Understanding how buoyant plastic particles accumulate in subsurface ocean regions informs our understanding of microplastic exposure in marine ecosystems at different depth layers.
Abstract. Although the movement and aggregation of microplastics at the ocean surface has been well studied, less is known about the subsurface. Within the Maxey-Riley framework governing the movement of small spheres with high drag in fluid, aggregation of buoyant particles is encouraged in vorticity-dominated regions. We explore this process in an idealized model of a three-dimensional eddy with an azimuthal and overturning circulation. In the axially symmetric state, particles that do not accumulate at the top boundary are attracted to a closed contour consisting of periodic orbits. Such a contour exists when drag on the particle is sufficiently strong. For small slightly-buoyant particles, this contour is located close to the periodic fluid trajectory. If the symmetric flow is perturbed by a symmetry-breaking disturbance, additional attractors arise near periodic orbits of fluid particles within the resonance zones created by the disturbance. Disturbances with periodic time dependence produce even more attractors, with a shape and location that recurs periodically, and which are composed of quasiperiodic orbits of rigid particles. Not all such contours attract, and particles released in the vicinity may instead be attracted to a nearby attractor. Examples are presented along with mappings of the respective basins of attraction.
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This comment paper examines the subsurface transport of microplastics in the ocean, modeled within the Maxey-Riley framework for particle movement in fluids. Understanding how buoyant microplastics aggregate and move below the sea surface is important for predicting their environmental fate and ecological impact.
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This peer comment discusses a mathematical modeling study of how microplastics move and accumulate below the ocean surface in three-dimensional eddies. The commenter engages with the theoretical framework governing particle movement in regions of fluid vorticity.
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This peer comment discusses a theoretical study of subsurface microplastic aggregation in ocean eddies using fluid dynamics models. Multiple reviewer comments on the same paper are recorded as separate entries in this dataset.
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