The Arctic Ocean as a dead end for floating plastics in the North Atlantic branch of the Thermohaline Circulation
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: The subtropical ocean gyres are recognized as great marine accummulation zones of floating plastic debris; however, the possibility of plastic accumulation at polar latitudes has been overlooked because of the lack of nearby pollution sources. In the present study, the Arctic Ocean was extensively sampled for floating plastic debris from the Tara Oceans circumpolar expedition. Although plastic debris was scarce or absent in most of the Arctic waters, it reached high concentrations (hundreds of thousands of pieces per square kilometer) in the northernmost and easternmost areas of the Greenland and Barents seas. The fragmentation and typology of the plastic suggested an abundant presence of aged debris that originated from distant sources. This hypothesis was corroborated by the relatively high ratios of marine surface plastic to local pollution sources. Surface circulation models and field data showed that the poleward branch of the Thermohaline Circulation transfers floating debris from the North Atlantic to the Greenland and Barents seas, which would be a dead end for this plastic conveyor belt. Given the limited surface transport of the plastic that accumulated here and the mechanisms acting for the downward transport, the seafloor beneath this Arctic sector is hypothesized as an important sink of plastic debris.
Source: Science Advances
Institutions: Universidad de Cádiz, Aarhus University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Utrecht University, Imperial College London, Harvard University, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Ikerbasque, AZTI
Language: English
Subfield: Pollution
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $4,500
Funders: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Battelle, Fundación BBVA, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Commission, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Fondation pour la Recherche sur la Biodiversite, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Fondation Veolia Environnement, Région Bretagne, U.S. Navy, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Office of Naval Research, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Awards: G1554707310, G1645119126, G166562317, G175745908, G203625172, G2579310621, G2988778103, G4423657506, G5726405315, G5892109311, G5929365414, G675320460, Biotechnologies et bioressources pour la valorisation des écosystèmes marins planctoniques, G705061367, G7240651115, G7589142545, G7999552054, G834413596, G8906985441, Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics and Biotechnology
OpenAlex ID: W2605950857