Origin, dynamics and evolution of ocean garbage patches from observed surface drifters

By E. van Sebille, M. England, Gary Froyland. 2012

485 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Much of the debris in the near-surface ocean collects in so-called garbage patches where, due to convergence of the surface flow, the debris is trapped for decades to millennia. Until now, studies modelling the pathways of surface marine debris have not included release from coasts or factored in the possibilities that release concentrations vary with region or that pathways may include seasonal cycles. Here, we use observational data from the Global Drifter Program in a particle-trajectory tracer approach that includes the seasonal cycle to study the fate of marine debris in the open ocean from coastal regions around the world on interannual to centennial timescales. We find that six major garbage patches emerge, one in each of the five subtropical basins and one previously unreported patch in the Barents Sea. The evolution of each of the six patches is markedly different. With the exception of the North Pacific, all patches are much more dispersive than expected from linear ocean circulation theory, suggesting that on centennial timescales the different basins are much better connected than previously thought and that inter-ocean exchanges play a large role in the spreading of marine debris. This study suggests that, over multi-millennial timescales, a significant amount of the debris released outside of the North Atlantic will eventually end up in the North Pacific patch, the main attractor of global marine debris.

Subfields: Oceanography, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/06706f9c42a7d95ff02cceab777edcc7741e8877

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Oceanography

1. M. Thiel
2. Peter Sherman
3. A. Shanks
4. E. van Sebille
5. A. Lusher
6. C. Jongedijk
7. B. Fox‐Kemper
8. D. Siegel

In Pollution

1. A. Lusher
2. E. van Sebille
3. Peter Sherman
4. F. Regoli
5. C. Avio
6. S. Gorbi
7. F. Galgani
8. J. V. van Franeker

Citations in the corpus

• A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “Van Sebille et al. (2012) were among the first to use observational data to model the spread of plastic debris in the ocean.”
• The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris (2020, background): “Rather, the gyres, and with them the accumulation zones, change shape andmove with time (Howell et al 2012, Lebreton et al 2018), and plastics are not trapped indefinitely in these gyres (van Sebille et al 2012a,Maes et al 2016).”
• Does size and buoyancy affect the long-distance transport of floating debris? (2015, unknown): “The locations of these accumulation zones have been predicted usingmodels based on surface drift data (Lebreton et al 2012, Maximenko et al 2012, van Sebille et al 2012), and generally correspond well with empirical data on the distribution of litter at sea (e.g. Cózar et al 2014, Eriksen et al…”
• A global inventory of small floating plastic debris (2015, methodology): “As in Maximenko et al (2012), Lebreton et al (2012) and van Sebille et al (2012), we released virtual microplastic in ocean circulation models to obtain maps of likely distribution of microplastics from transport by ocean surface currents.”
• Threat of plastic pollution to seabirds is global, pervasive, and increasing (2015, background): “These regions have received much less emphasis in the discussion of marine debris impacts because their predicted plastic concentrations are much lower than those in the convergence zones, although the region is data-poor (7).”
• Plastics and microplastics in the oceans: From emerging pollutants to emerged threat. (2017, background): “At now, a total of 5 ocean gyres have been identified (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, South Indian, North Pacific and South Pacific), and another garbage patch was predicted to occur in the Barents Sea (van Sebille et al., 2012).”
• Effects of biofouling on the sinking behavior of microplastics (2017, background): “The gap is especially large for sub-surface transport, with recent studies focusing on surface drift of floating plastic (Cózar et al 2017, 2015, Lebreton et al 2012, van Sebille et al 2015, 2012).”
• The Parcels v2.0 Lagrangian framework: new field interpolation schemes (2019, background): “Various studies have already modelled the accumulation of MP in the Arctic (van Sebille et al., 2012, 2015; Cózar et al., 2017), highlighting the MP transport from the North Atlantic20 and the North Sea.”
• Observations of floating anthropogenic litter in the Barents Sea and Fram Strait, Arctic (2016, methodology): “This notion is corroborated by models projecting the formation of a sixth garbage patch in the Barents Sea region (van Sebille et al. 2012), which is probably due to highly populated coasts of the North Atlantic and may leak to the north.”