Plastic Accumulation in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre

被引:931
作者
Law, Kara Lavender [1 ]
Moret-Ferguson, Skye [1 ,2 ]
Maximenko, Nikolai A. [3 ]
Proskurowski, Giora [1 ,2 ]
Peacock, Emily E. [2 ]
Hafner, Jan [3 ]
Reddy, Christopher M. [2 ]
机构
[1] Sea Educ Assoc, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
[2] Woods Hole Oceanog Inst, Dept Marine Chem & Geochem, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
[3] Univ Hawaii, Sch Ocean & Earth Sci & Technol, Int Pacific Res Ctr, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
MARINE-ENVIRONMENT; PACIFIC-OCEAN; DEBRIS; TRANSPORT; SURFACE; SEA; TAR; INVASIONS; CHEMICALS; WATERS;
D O I
10.1126/science.1192321
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Plastic marine pollution is a major environmental concern, yet a quantitative description of the scope of this problem in the open ocean is lacking. Here, we present a time series of plastic content at the surface of the western North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea from 1986 to 2008. More than 60% of 6136 surface plankton net tows collected buoyant plastic pieces, typically millimeters in size. The highest concentration of plastic debris was observed in subtropical latitudes and associated with the observed large-scale convergence in surface currents predicted by Ekman dynamics. Despite a rapid increase in plastic production and disposal during this time period, no trend in plastic concentration was observed in the region of highest accumulation.
引用
收藏
页码:1185 / 1188
页数:4
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