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20 resultsShowing papers similar to Microplastic pollution as an environmental risk exacerbating the greenhouse effect and climate change: a review
ClearEmerging challenges of microplastic impacts to ecological health and climate change
This review examines how microplastics contribute not only to environmental pollution but also to climate change by altering microbial processes, disrupting biogeochemical cycles, and promoting greenhouse gas release. Researchers found that microplastics affect carbon cycling, phytoplankton photosynthesis, and atmospheric processes in ways that may exacerbate global warming. The study highlights significant knowledge gaps in understanding the mechanisms linking microplastic pollution to greenhouse gas emissions.
Role of Microplastics in Global Warming and Climate Change: A Review
This review examines how microplastics contribute to climate change through multiple pathways, including disrupting ocean carbon capture by phytoplankton, releasing greenhouse gases from soil, and potentially influencing cloud formation in the atmosphere. Researchers found that climate-driven extreme weather events also redistribute microplastics, creating a feedback loop that worsens both problems. The study makes the case that microplastic pollution and climate change should be addressed as interconnected challenges.
Role of soil microplastic pollution in climate change
This review examined the bidirectional relationship between soil microplastic pollution and climate change, exploring how microplastics affect soil carbon cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, and how climate factors influence microplastic behavior in soils.
Effects of microplastics on microbial community and greenhouse gas emission in soil: A critical review
This review examines how microplastics in soil affect microbial communities and greenhouse gas emissions, finding that microplastics can alter the abundance and activity of soil bacteria in ways that increase carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide release. The plastics change soil structure and chemistry, creating conditions that favor certain gas-producing microbes over others. These effects could worsen climate change while also disrupting soil fertility, with indirect consequences for food production.
From pollution to ocean warming: The climate impacts of marine microplastics
This review examined the largely overlooked role of marine microplastics in driving climate change, covering how they disrupt oceanic carbon pumps, alter biogeochemical cycling, and directly emit greenhouse gases during UV degradation. The authors found that microplastics reduce the efficiency of the biological carbon pump by impairing marine organisms that sequester carbon, creating a feedback loop between plastic pollution and ocean warming.
Microplastics and Climate Change: Analyzing the Environmental Impact and Mitigation Strategies
This review analyzes the relationship between microplastic pollution and climate change, examining how each phenomenon worsens the other and what mitigation strategies might address both simultaneously. The authors find that warming accelerates plastic fragmentation while microplastics contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, calling for integrated environmental policy responses.
Climate change and microplastics: a two-way interaction
This review characterises the bidirectional relationship between microplastics and climate change: plastics production and degradation generate greenhouse gases, while rising temperatures and changing precipitation alter MP distribution and toxicity in ecosystems. It calls for integrated strategies that address both plastic pollution and climate change.
Bridging the gap: a review on the interaction between (micro)plastics and climate change
This review examined the two-way relationship between climate change and microplastic pollution. Researchers found that climate-driven changes like rising temperatures, altered weather patterns, and ocean acidification can accelerate microplastic breakdown and redistribute particles across ecosystems, while plastic production and degradation processes themselves contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, creating a reinforcing cycle.
Ecological effect of microplastics on soil microbe-driven carbon circulation and greenhouse gas emission: A review
This review examines how microplastics in soil affect carbon cycling by altering microbial activity, with implications for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Researchers found that microplastics can change soil structure, nutrient availability, and microbial community composition in ways that affect how carbon is stored or released from soil. The study suggests that widespread microplastic contamination in agricultural and natural soils could have far-reaching consequences for the global carbon balance.
Plastic pollution amplified by a warming climate
Researchers examined the connection between climate change and plastic pollution, finding that rising temperatures accelerate plastic degradation and microplastic generation, meaning that as the planet warms, the microplastic problem is likely to get worse faster.
The Interplay Between Climate Warming Driven by Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Ecotoxicological Effects of Microplastics: Insights From a Meta‐Analysis
This meta-analysis pools data from multiple studies to explore how climate change and microplastic pollution interact and worsen each other's environmental effects. The findings suggest that warming temperatures may increase the toxicity and breakdown of microplastics, potentially amplifying health and ecological risks as the climate continues to change.
Microplastics and their Impact on the Marine Environment
This review examines how plastic debris in the ocean degrades into microplastics and affects marine ecosystems. The authors discuss how surface plastics reduce heat absorption and how degrading plastics release greenhouse gases, potentially contributing to climate change. The review also highlights the role of ocean plastic in altering marine food webs and threatening biodiversity.
Microplastics in agricultural soil: Unveiling their role in shaping soil properties and driving greenhouse gas emissions
This review examines how microplastics in agricultural soils affect carbon and nitrogen cycles and alter greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers found that microplastics reduce soil water retention, decrease soil respiration, and increase emissions of carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The study reveals that microplastic contamination in farmland may have broader climate implications by disrupting the soil processes that regulate greenhouse gas fluxes.
Plastic Pollution and Climate Change: Double Trouble
This accessible review explains how plastics and climate change reinforce each other — plastic production emits greenhouse gases, warming accelerates microplastic release from the environment, and microplastics themselves disrupt ecosystems that regulate climate — calling for integrated policy solutions.
Microplastics and climate change: the global impacts of a tiny driver
This review explores the connections between microplastic pollution and climate change, two environmental crises that are more intertwined than they might appear. Researchers found that microplastics disrupt ocean carbon sequestration by affecting plankton, may accelerate ice cap melting by reducing surface reflectivity, and can influence greenhouse gas emissions from both water and soil. The study argues that addressing microplastic pollution should be considered an integral part of comprehensive climate change strategies.
Disentangling microplastics effects on soil structure, microbial activity and greenhouse gas emissions
Researchers studied how microplastics affect soil structure, microbial activity, and greenhouse gas emissions, finding complex interactions that depend on microplastic type and concentration. The presence of microplastics in soils can alter the biological processes that regulate carbon storage and nutrient cycling.
Microplastics alter soil carbon cycling: Effects on carbon storage, CO 2 and CH 4 emission and microbial community
This systematic review examines how microplastics in soil affect carbon cycling, including greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage. The effects depend heavily on plastic type and size, with biodegradable plastics generally having a bigger impact. Understanding these soil-level changes matters because disrupted carbon cycles can worsen climate change, which in turn affects the food and water systems we all depend on.
A Study of the Effects of Microplastics on Microbial Communities in Marine Sediments
This study investigated how the presence of microplastics in marine sediments affects microbial communities and, specifically, the methane cycle, finding that microplastics significantly altered microbial community structure and function. Since marine sediment microbes play a critical role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic contamination could have broader climate-relevant effects beyond direct toxicity.
Research progress on the interaction between climate change and marine microplastic pollution
This review examines the two-way relationship between climate change and marine microplastic pollution, finding that rising ocean temperatures, acidification, and hypoxia can accelerate plastic fragmentation and alter how microplastics are distributed and ingested by marine life. Conversely, microplastics may affect carbon cycling and plankton productivity in ways that feed back into climate dynamics. The findings highlight that microplastic risks cannot be assessed in isolation from the broader context of a changing ocean.
Could soil microplastic pollution exacerbate climate change? A meta-analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential
The first meta-analysis linking soil microplastic pollution to greenhouse gas emissions found that microplastics increased overall emissions, with the strongest effect being a 60% increase in methane. Polyethylene caused the highest methane emissions, phenol-formaldehyde had the greatest global warming potential via nitrous oxide, and greenhouse gas emissions rose sharply when soil microplastic content exceeded 0.5%.