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Global microplastic emission and deposition fluxes at the ocean-atmosphere interface
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This study used bottom-up modeling to estimate how microplastics move between the ocean surface and the atmosphere at a global scale. The findings suggest ocean surfaces are both a source and sink for airborne microplastics, helping explain how plastics cycle through Earth's major environmental systems.
While microplastics (MP) have been recently identified and recognized as a pollutant for the atmospheric environment, little is known about their actual emissions and concentration in the atmosphere. In this work, we follow a bottom-up approach to estimate the fluxes of MP at the ocean-atmosphere interface.Coupling a sea spray emission scheme (Grythe et al. 2014) with the MP concentrations over the ocean surface simulated by the NEMO-PISCES general circulation model (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean, Pelagic Interaction Scheme for Carbon and Ecosystem Studies, Richon et al. 2022), we estimate the global sea spray MP emissions at 6-hourly resolution, over a one-year period.The MP emission fluxes are then fed into the Lagrangian atmospheric dispersion model FLEXPART (Stohl et al., 2005; Pisso et al., 2019), driven with hourly ERA5 data at 0.5° horizontal resolution, to provide a global picture of the atmospheric cycle of the MP of marine origin.We discuss the main emission areas and their marked seasonal variability, the resulting atmospheric concentration across the globe and the deposition fluxes on both land and ocean surfaces. Finally, we compare simulated fluxes and concentrations with existing observations of MP in the marine atmosphere.
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Researchers quantified atmospheric microplastic emissions from both land and ocean surfaces, finding that re-suspension of deposited plastics from land and sea spray from the ocean are significant sources of airborne particles. The results highlight that the ocean is not just a sink but also a source of airborne microplastics.
Global microplastic emission and deposition fluxes at the ocean-atmosphere interface
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Researchers used the NEMO-PISCES ocean circulation model to estimate global ocean surface microplastic concentrations and then fed these into the FLEXPART Lagrangian atmospheric dispersion model to simulate microplastic sea spray emissions and their deposition at 6-hourly resolution over one year. The study produced a global map of atmospheric microplastic cycling from marine origins, identifying main emission zones, seasonal variability, and deposition fluxes on both land and ocean surfaces.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.