scholarly journals Relative Abundance of Floating Plastic Debris and Neuston in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Egger ◽  
Lauren Quiros ◽  
Giulia Leone ◽  
Francesco Ferrari ◽  
Christiana M. Boerger ◽  
...  

Despite an increasing research conducted on ocean plastic pollution over the last decade, there are still large knowledge gaps in our current understanding of how floating plastic debris accumulating in subtropical oceanic gyres may harm the surface-associated pelagic community known as neuston. Removing floating plastic debris from the surface ocean can minimize potentially adverse effects of plastic pollution on the neuston, as well as prevent the formation of large quantities of secondary micro- and nanoplastics. However, due to the scarcity of observational data from remote and difficult to access offshore waters, neuston dynamics in subtropical oceanic gyres and thus the potential impacts of plastic pollution as well as of cleanup activities on the neuston remain uncertain. Here, we provide rare observational data of the relative distribution of floating plastic debris (0.05–5 cm in size) and members of the neuston in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Our results reveal that the dominant neustonic species co-occurring with high concentrations of floating plastic debris in the North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP) such as Porpita porpita, Halobates spp., pteropods, isopods, heteropods, and crabs depict either a low atmospheric drag due to physical attributes or a potential plastic-associated fitness benefit such as increased surface area for oviposition and structure for habitat. We further observe relatively higher plastic to organism ratios inside the NPGP for most target species compared to waters outside the NPGP. The findings presented here provide a first observational baseline to develop ecological models that can help evaluate the long-term risks of plastic pollution and of offshore cleanup activities for neuston in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. We further suggest that offshore mitigation strategies aiming at removing floating plastic debris from the ocean surface need to evaluate both, the direct impact of neuston bycatch during plastic removal on neuston population dynamics, as well as the potential benefits of reducing the negative effects of plastic pollution on the neuston.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Egger ◽  
Wouter Jan Strietman ◽  
Ulphard Thoden van Velzen ◽  
Ingeborg Smeding-Zuurendonk ◽  
Laurent Lebreton

<p>Citizen science programs and tracking applications have been used in the collection of data on plastic debris in marine environments to determine its composition and sources. These programs, however, are mostly focused on debris collected from beach cleanups and coastal environments. Large plastic debris currently afloat at sea, which is a significant contributor to marine plastic pollution and a major source of beach litter, is less well-characterized.</p><p>Transported by currents, wind and waves, positively buoyant plastic objects eventually accumulate at the sea surface of subtropical oceanic gyres, forming the so-called ocean garbage patches. It is important to know where the debris that persists in the offshore gyres is entering the ocean, where it is produced and what practices (commercial, cultural, industrial) are contributing to the accumulation of these debris into the ocean garbage patches. This information coupled to data on how long and well the plastics persevere at the sea surface is necessary for creating effective and efficient mitigation strategies.</p><p>Here we provide a comprehensive assessment of plastic debris afloat in the North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP). Offshore debris collected by The Ocean Cleanup’s System 001b from the NPGP in 2019 was analyzed using the Litter-ID method, which applies an adapted and expended version of the OSPAR guideline for monitoring beach litter. Our results reveal new insights into the composition, origin and age of plastic debris accumulating at the ocean surface in the NPGP. The standardized methodology applied here further enables a first thorough comparison of plastic debris accumulating in offshore waters and coastal environments.</p>


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 388
Author(s):  
Hao Cheng ◽  
Liang Sun ◽  
Jiagen Li

The extraction of physical information about the subsurface ocean from surface information obtained from satellite measurements is both important and challenging. We introduce a back-propagation neural network (BPNN) method to determine the subsurface temperature of the North Pacific Ocean by selecting the optimum input combination of sea surface parameters obtained from satellite measurements. In addition to sea surface height (SSH), sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS) and sea surface wind (SSW), we also included the sea surface velocity (SSV) as a new component in our study. This allowed us to partially resolve the non-linear subsurface dynamics associated with advection, which improved the estimated results, especially in regions with strong currents. The accuracy of the estimated results was verified with reprocessed observational datasets. Our results show that the BPNN model can accurately estimate the subsurface (upper 1000 m) temperature of the North Pacific Ocean. The corresponding mean square errors were 0.868 and 0.802 using four (SSH, SST, SSS and SSW) and five (SSH, SST, SSS, SSW and SSV) input parameters and the average coefficients of determination were 0.952 and 0.967, respectively. The input of the SSV in addition to the SSH, SST, SSS and SSW therefore has a positive impact on the BPNN model and helps to improve the accuracy of the estimation. This study provides important technical support for retrieving thermal information about the ocean interior from surface satellite remote sensing observations, which will help to expand the scope of satellite measurements of the ocean.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. David Wells ◽  
Veronica A. Quesnell ◽  
Robert L. Humphreys ◽  
Heidi Dewar ◽  
Jay R. Rooker ◽  
...  

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