BBC News reports that "ice cores were gathered from five regions throughout the Arctic Ocean in the spring of 2014 and summer of 2015" and the researchers "found concentrations of over 12,000 particles per litre of sea ice - which is two to three times higher than" than they had seen previously.
Arctic sea ice is an important temporal sink and means of transport for microplastic
orcid.org/0000-0003-1531-1664
Previously: Microplastics in Arctic Ice
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Small pieces of plastic (sizes less than 5mm), dubbed microplastics, have been found all over the world, particularly in the great garbage patches associated with major ocean gyres. One of the puzzling things about the microplastic composition of these garbage patches is that, despite the enormous increase in production of plastics and other man-made materials over the past decades, the microplastic abundance has not changed over the time they have been monitored. This suggests that there are large sinks where these particles disappear.
Obbard et al. report in the most recent issue of the open-access journal Earth's Future that Arctic ice is one of these sinks. Ice core sampling has shown the concentration of microplastics encapsulated in the ice is at least two orders of magnitude higher than that observed in the garbage patches. Given the expected melt rate of the ice, this means a great deal of trapped plastic will be released back into the oceans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @12:52PM
Here's the idea: freeze the great Pacific garbage patch. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 30 2018, @12:57PM (11 children)
I wonder how much the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies in this situation? Certainly, we wouldn't be up there measuring if the Arctic weren't so interesting because it's starting to melt more, and that melting brings in more recent (and therefore polluted) seawater. Finally, all these research boats churning around probably mix in even more polluted water.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @01:08PM
Righto, climacteric researchers in their frenzy and their boats transport microplastic into arctic. I wonder how nobody thought about, not even that uncertainly principled Heisenberg!
It all makes sense now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
Also, I attribute the increase in hurricanes on the use of helicopters by frenzied climate researchers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 30 2018, @05:18PM
Hey, don't make fun of that theory! I worked out how and why hurricanes and tornadoes happened, before I even started school! All on my own, I worked out the butterfly effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect [wikipedia.org] Yeah, the teachers in the public school system taught me "better", but I still like my original theory.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ants_in_pants on Monday April 30 2018, @02:58PM (4 children)
the Heisenburg uncertainty principle applies to elementary particles, not plastic, and there are a lot more shipping boats than research boats in the arctic.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 30 2018, @05:51PM (3 children)
OK, but Brownian motion applies to small enough pieces of plastic, and in this context that's about the same. Mind you, I didn't follow the argument, but this specific objection to it doesn't work. Also, since these were ice cores, it's not clear that the source was ships of any sort. If it's largely by water washing over the top of floating ice in sub-freezing weather, then one might expect air pollution to be the source. But mainly since plastic floats, ice doesn't form in rapid turbulence, etc. I think the explanation fails on other points.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Saturday May 12 2018, @03:34AM (2 children)
why would brownian motion matter when talking about measuring plastic concentrations?
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 12 2018, @04:41PM (1 child)
A lot of the pieces are quite small. Small enough that Brownian motion becomes important.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Thursday May 17 2018, @02:47AM
important to...?
So they move brownianly on small scales. That's nice but completely irrelevant.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 30 2018, @05:12PM (1 child)
You're modded funny, and posters are making fun of you. But . . .
Is it beyond possibility that some unprincipled researchers have introduced plastics into the samples, to help advance the climate change narrative?
I don't expect anyone to treat that theory seriously. But, hey, crazier things have happened!
While we're on the subject of ice, can I interest you in a slightly used hockey stick? I don't think Al Gore is using it anymore.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday May 01 2018, @01:01AM
Call me a cynic, but when lots of money are involved, I've always been biased toward that possibility being quite real.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @08:00AM
Your funky joke aside it's the observer effect you're after, where looking at something changes it. Uncertainly principle says we cannot measure for example both the location and speed of a particle accurately. Or some other similar connected pair of properties.
Common mistake. Admittedly the quantum physics is a(n en)tangled subject.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @04:45PM
https://rarbg.to/torrent/jgbtru8 [rarbg.to]