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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Aggregation of Slightly Buoyant Microplastics in Three-Dimensional Vortex Flows
ClearSupplementary material to "Aggregation of Slightly Buoyant Microplastics in Three-Dimensional Vortex Flows"
This is the supplementary mathematical appendix for the study on buoyant microplastic aggregation in three-dimensional vortex flows. The mathematical framework describes how microplastic particles with slight buoyancy deviate from fluid streamlines and accumulate in ocean eddy regions.
Aggregation of slightly buoyant microplastics in 3D vortex flows
Researchers studied the aggregation of slightly buoyant microplastics in three-dimensional vortex flows using the Maxey-Riley framework for small rigid spheres in fluid, finding that buoyant particles preferentially accumulate in vortex cores. The results explain subsurface microplastic aggregation patterns observed in ocean environments with rotational flow structures.
Comment on egusphere-2023-1624
This modeling study examined how microplastics aggregate and move below the ocean surface, finding that buoyant plastic particles can be concentrated in vorticity-dominated regions. Understanding subsurface microplastic transport is important for predicting where plastic accumulates and how it enters marine food webs.
Submesoscale eddies and their potential for buoyant microplastic accumulation
This study investigates how small ocean eddies called submesoscale eddies can trap and concentrate buoyant microplastics below the water surface, not just at the top. Using both physical oceanographic measurements and laboratory experiments, researchers found that these rotating water masses create subsurface attractors that pull floating particles downward. This matters because it helps explain why microplastics are found throughout the water column rather than only at the surface, complicating efforts to clean up or track ocean plastic pollution.
Large eddy simulations of the accumulation of buoyant material in oceanic wind-driven and convective turbulence
Researchers used large eddy simulations to show that buoyant materials like microplastics accumulate at specific ocean surface zones driven by convergent currents under both wind-driven and convective turbulence, improving understanding of how plastics concentrate at the sea surface.
On Clustering of Floating Tracers in Random Velocity Fields
This mathematical modeling study explores how floating particles — including microplastics — cluster into dense patches on the ocean surface under turbulent currents, finding that realistic time-correlated ocean flows produce clusters far faster than simpler models predict. Understanding this clustering behavior is important for accurately assessing where microplastic pollution concentrates in the ocean and how organisms encounter it at ecologically meaningful densities.
Modeling the trajectories of floating and non-floating microplastic particles in the water column
Researchers modeled the trajectories of both floating and non-floating microplastic particles in freshwater and marine water columns, accounting for turbulence-induced mixing, buoyancy differences, and flow characteristics that determine vertical and horizontal distribution. The study highlights that while low-density polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene are expected to concentrate at the surface, turbulent mixing drives significant depth distribution across aquatic environments.
The dynamics of biofouled particles in vortical flows
Researchers modeled how biofouling — the growth of organisms on plastic surfaces — affects the movement of microplastic particles in vortex-dominated ocean flows. Biofouled particles with increasing density tended to accumulate in specific flow zones compared to clean particles. Understanding these dynamics is important for predicting where biofouled microplastics ultimately sink and accumulate in the ocean.
Vertical transport of buoyant microplastic particles in the ocean: The role of turbulence and biofouling
Researchers modeled how turbulence and biofouling interact to determine the vertical movement of buoyant microplastic particles in the ocean. They identified three distinct flow regimes that govern whether microplastics stay at the surface, oscillate, or sink to the seafloor. The study helps explain the observation that even low-density microplastics are found in deep ocean sediments, suggesting biofouling-driven density changes are a key transport mechanism.
Particle dispersion and clustering in surface ocean turbulence with ageostrophic dynamics
This paper is not directly about microplastics; it uses numerical ocean simulations to model how small-scale turbulence and ageostrophic dynamics affect the clustering and dispersion of floating particles at the ocean surface, with relevance to understanding how marine debris concentrates in convergence zones.
Comment on egusphere-2023-1624
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.
Vertical distribution of weakly inertial, quasi-neutrally buoyant particles in a convective ocean mixed layer
Scientists used computer models to study how tiny plastic particles move up and down in ocean water. They found that these microplastics don't just float at the surface—they can get trapped at specific depths where ocean currents and temperature changes create "collection zones." This matters because it helps explain where microplastics accumulate in the ocean, which could affect marine food chains and ultimately the seafood we eat.
Microplastics segregation by rise velocity at the ocean surface
This study modeled the competing forces of particle buoyancy and turbulent mixing that control the vertical distribution of microplastics in the ocean surface layer, finding that particle rise velocity is the key variable that segregates plastic types and determines how they distribute relative to surface and subsurface measurements.
Influence of Mesoscale Eddies on the Three-Dimensional Distribution of Microplastics in the Western North Pacific
Scientists found that swirling ocean currents called eddies control where tiny plastic particles collect in the Pacific Ocean, with some areas concentrating plastics as deep as 600 meters underwater. This discovery helps us better understand how microplastics spread through the ocean and could improve predictions of where these pollutants end up in seafood and marine ecosystems. Understanding plastic distribution patterns is important because microplastics can work their way up the food chain and potentially affect human health through the fish we eat.
Passive buoyant tracers in the ocean surface boundary layer: 1. Influence of equilibrium wind‐waves on vertical distributions
Using large eddy simulations, this paper modeled how wind-driven waves affect the vertical distribution of buoyant particles near the ocean surface, providing the physical framework for the companion paper on microplastic debris distribution. The models explain why floating microplastics are often mixed down below the surface, reducing the concentrations observed in surface sampling.
A Numerical Model Approach Toward a Settling Process and Feedback Loop of Ocean Microplastics Absorbed Into Phytoplankton Aggregates
Researchers developed a numerical model to simulate how buoyant microplastics are absorbed into sinking phytoplankton aggregates during algal blooms, causing them to settle toward the seafloor at measurable rates. The model successfully reproduced observed vertical profiles of microplastic abundance in the ocean, including subsurface concentration peaks that simple buoyancy models cannot explain. This work clarifies an important mechanism by which microplastics are transported from the ocean surface to deep sediments, where they accumulate long-term.
Clustering of buoyant tracer in quasi-geostrophic coherent structures
Using Lagrangian particle tracking in a turbulent quasi-geostrophic ocean model, researchers found that buoyant floating tracers cluster inside coherent vortex structures due to ageostrophic circulation effects, with implications for understanding how surface plastic debris concentrates in ocean eddies.
Sinking microplastics in the water column: simulations in the Mediterranean Sea
Researchers simulated the vertical dispersion and distribution of negatively buoyant microplastics in the Mediterranean Sea using a realistic circulation model, evaluating how inertia, Coriolis force, turbulence, and variable seawater density affect sinking trajectories and accumulation zones.
The effect of wind mixing on the vertical distribution of buoyant plastic debris
Researchers modeled and measured how wind mixing affects the vertical distribution of buoyant plastic debris in the ocean, finding that turbulent mixing drives plastics below the surface and explains why surface sampling underestimates total plastic concentrations.
The vertical distribution of buoyant plastics at sea: an observational study in the North Atlantic Gyre
Field measurements of buoyant plastic particles at multiple depths in the ocean showed that concentrations decrease sharply below a few meters, with turbulence mixing plastics downward. The data validate model predictions and confirm that surface net trawls substantially undercount total plastic in the water column.
Passive buoyant tracers in the ocean surface boundary layer: 2. Observations and simulations of microplastic marine debris
Using ocean computer models calibrated against real-world observations, this study showed how wave mixing and other physical processes push buoyant microplastics below the ocean surface, explaining why less plastic is detected at the surface than expected. These models are critical for estimating where microplastic pollution is truly accumulating in the ocean.
A theory for attractors of microplastic particles in the resonant structures of a 3D eddy
Researchers developed a theoretical framework predicting the formation of attractors — closed-loop trajectories — for microplastic particles within the resonant structures of three-dimensional ocean eddies. The theory establishes criteria for when such attractors exist and provides a mechanism explaining observed accumulation of small rigid particles in recirculating oceanic flows.
The Role of the Unsteady Surface Wave‐Driven Ekman–Stokes Flow in the Accumulation of Floating Marine Litter
Researchers modeled the role of wave-driven Ekman-Stokes flow in the accumulation of floating marine debris, finding that this near-surface current mechanism significantly influences where plastic litter concentrates at sea, with implications for predicting and targeting ocean cleanup efforts.
Influence of waves on the three-dimensional distribution of plastic in the ocean
Researchers modeled the trajectories of microplastic particles released continuously from coastal sources across realistic ocean simulations to understand how wave dynamics and ocean circulation distribute plastic pollution globally. The model showed that wave-driven mixing significantly influences vertical plastic distribution, not just horizontal surface drift. Including wave effects improves predictions of where ocean microplastics accumulate.