A free diver surrounded by plastic pollution
Agency Sebnem Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images
Microplastics do not only float on the surface of the ocean. A global study of tiny particles reveals that they are widespread throughout the water column – even with the deepest depths – which could affect Ocean's ability to eliminate carbon from the atmosphere.
“It is millions and millions of metric tonnes of these stuff in the interiors of the ocean,” said Tracy Mance to Florida Atlantic University.
Damn and colleagues have examined the microplastic measures taken over the past decade from nearly 2,000 sites around the world. While most microplastic measures focused on the shallow surface of the ocean, the data set included samples of a range of depths, including The deepest parts of the ocean.
They found that microplastics were recorded practically wherever people wanted them. Which includes Mariana trenchWhere more than 13,000 microplastic particles per cube meter were measured at almost 7 kilometers.
The researchers were surprised to see that the smallest particles are distributed almost evenly in the water column – not flowing or floating on the surface, but suspended. “We expect to find plastics at the bottom of the ocean and at the top of the ocean. But not everywhere, ”says Aron Stubbins to the Northeastern University in Massachusetts.
They also found that the polymers of these plastics represent a significant proportion of the carbon particles floating around. At depths of 2000 meters, where there is less biological activity than closer to the surface, they represent up to 5% of carbon.
The ecological consequences of this are largely unknown, but a concern is that the floating plastic consumed by plankton could reduce the volume of carbon that flows to the depths of their granules and fecal corpses. Which could hamper the ocean capacity to take CO2 atmosphere via the Organic carbon pumpsaid Stubbins. However, he stresses that we are far from being able to estimate the size of this effect. “We just now discover the extent of plastics across the ocean,” he says.
“He can no longer be ignored by chemists or biologists trying to settle how large pieces of the oceans work,” said Douglas McCauley at the University of California Santa Barbara. He says that the survey helps to explain the disagreements between the estimates of the millions of tonnes of plastic flowing in the ocean and the quantity really measured. “He has not disappeared, unfortunately. It is distributed in microplastic form through the water column, ”he says.
