The Great Pacific Garbage Patch may hold so much microplastic that it is changing the ocean's color, a satellite study suggests
CNN explains how researchers made plastic 'smoothies' in the lab to work out what microplastics look like from space.
What happened: University of Bergen researchers report in Communications Earth & Environment that 20 years of satellite data (2002-2022) show the water in and around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch getting brighter in blue and green wavelengths than the surrounding ocean, likely turning it cyan. Simulations with natural causes like phytoplankton didn't explain it well; adding microplastics did, CNN reports.
Why it matters: If it holds up, satellites could become a cheap way to estimate tiny plastic pieces that are otherwise counted by hand, and help solve where most ocean plastic ends up.
How much agreement is there? Some disagreement on the cause, not on the plastic problem. The authors say it is not yet proven that plastic is directly and exclusively behind the color shift and want to take measurements in the patch; an outside expert, Richard Thompson, calls detecting a plastic signal 'very challenging' but the findings important.
Could someone help? Cutting single-use plastic and joining beach and river cleanups keeps plastic from reaching the gyres; confirming the result needs direct measurements in the patch, which the team calls tricky and expensive.
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What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
After exploring The Great Pacific Garbage Patch may now have so much plastic, it’s changing the color of the ocean | CNN, for why it isn't really a floating island, read What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?.
NOAA explains that the 'patch' is not a continuous island of trash: much of the debris is small pieces of floating plastic not easily seen by eye, spread across several regions of the North Pacific.
NOAA National Ocean Service · Wade · 5 min
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Ocean color
After exploring The Great Pacific Garbage Patch may now have so much plastic, it’s changing the color of the ocean | CNN, the science of reading the sea from space is Ocean color.
The branch of ocean optics that studies the color of water and what it reveals; the ocean ranges from blue to green, yellow, brown or red.
Wikipedia · Swim · 30 min
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