Environment: Sea ice transports microplastics across the Arctic
Nature Communications
2018년4월25일

Sea ice traps large amounts of microplastics and transports them across the Arctic Ocean according to a study in Nature Communications this week. This finding demonstrates that sea ice can act as a temporary sink for microplastics, and confirms that large amounts may be released into the ocean as climate change leads to increased sea ice melting.
Ilka Peeken and colleagues analyse the composition of microplastics (plastics smaller than 5 mm) in ice cores and sea-ice drift trajectories, and use an ice-growth model to identify regions where microplastics become trapped during sea-ice growth. They find that polymer composition varies across ice cores and identify unique compositions for different areas of origin. They also demonstrate that their sea-ice samples originated from the Amerasian and Eurasian Basins, and that most were transported through the Central Arctic via the Transpolar Drift, a major Arctic current.
The authors argue that microplastic distribution in the Central Arctic is more complex than previously considered and that microplastics released from melting sea ice have the potential to be distributed across surface and deeper waters in the Arctic Ocean.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03825-5
리서치 하이라이트
-
3월4일
Environment: Reservoirs account for more than half of water storage variabilityNature
-
3월2일
Evolution: Neanderthals may have heard just like usNature Ecology & Evolution
-
3월2일
Geoscience: Earth’s atmosphere may return to low-levels of oxygen in one billion yearsNature Geoscience
-
2월26일
Environment: Shifting from small to medium plastic bottles could reduce PET wasteScientific Reports
-
2월24일
Environment: European forests more vulnerable to multiple threats as climate warmsNature Communications
-
2월11일
Environment: Global CFC-11 emissions in declineNature