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Atmospheric microplastics over ocean: abundance, distribution and transport
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This conference contribution presents research on atmospheric microplastics over the open ocean, based on three transoceanic surveys covering the Pacific and Atlantic. Atmospheric transport is an important pathway for microplastics to reach even remote ocean areas far from land-based sources. The work quantifies how much plastic is deposited from air to ocean across different ocean basins.
Atmospheric transport was considered as an important pathway through which MPs (microplastics) enter the ocean since the early 2019s, but the source, transport, and fate of atmospheric MP have not well known. Besides, the connection between terrigenous atmospheric MP emissions and impacts over the ocean is not well known. In this conference, we will present our research about the variations of atmospheric MP over the ocean based on the three transoceanic survey, include the west Pacific Ocean, south china sea and east Indian ocean. Results suggest that synthetic MP comprised 25.89 % of total atmospheric particles over the west Pacific Ocean, with most being cotton and cellulose (51.68%). We found that the atmospheric MP was sparsely distributed over ocean, with different characteristics. The mean abundance of atmospheric MP over the western Pacific Ocean during the sampling period were 0.841 ± 0.698 items/100 m3. The abundance of atmospheric MP over the Pearl River Estuary (4.2 ± 2.5 items/100 m3) was significantly higher than that over the East Indian Ocean (0.4 ± 0.6 items/100 m3). However, the abundance of atmospheric MP in the SCS (0.8 ± 1.3 items/100 m3) was not significantly different from the East Indian Ocean and Pearl River Estuary. Results indicated that the size of airborne MP fiber over ocean is probably not the limiting factor during the long-range transport. Research reveal that MP undergoes long-range transport, more than 1000 km away. Furthermore, backward trajectory model analysis preliminary showed the potential sources of atmospheric MP over ocean. Our study provides the better understanding on the impact of atmospheric transport on global plastic cycle.
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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.