#National Oceanography Centre

[indizombie]

Mike Clare, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre, said it's essential that scientists and engineers assess new potential disruptions that may emerge with climate change. “Our reliance on cables that are no wider than a garden hose is a surprise to many, who regard satellites as the main means of communication,” Clare said in a release. “But satellites simply don’t have the bandwidth to support modern digital systems. The ‘cloud’ is not in the sky — it is under the sea.”

Daniel Cusick, ‘Global Internet Connectivity Is at Risk from Climate Disasters’, Scientific American

[mindblowingscience]

​An unprecedentedly violent volcanic eruption that triggered a tsunami off the Pacific island nation of Tonga in 2022 unleashed the fastest underwater currents ever recorded, according to a study published on Thursday. The submerged Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcano sent rocks, ash and gas racing across the seafloor at 122 kilometers (76 miles) per hour in January last year, found the paper published in the journal Science. The eruption – the most powerful ever recorded with modern equipment – triggered a deadly tsunami and "avalanche-like flows" of material that damaged underwater telecommunications cables connecting Tonga with the rest of the world. A research team led by scientists from Britain's National Oceanography Centre (NOC) used the timings and locations of cable damage to calculate the speed of the flows. The volcano's eruption plume, up to 57 kilometers high, fell directly into the water and onto steep underwater slopes, explained Mike Clare of the NOC. ​The speed and power of the currents were so great that they were capable of running at least 100 kilometers across the seafloor and wrecking the cables, he said. The flows were faster than those triggered by earthquakes, floods or storms, the paper added.

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[cryptid-quest]

On This Day in Cryptid History

August 24th: In 2011, a Loch Ness captain photographed a sonar image of a 4.9ft unidentified object that seemed to follow his boat. A year later, scientists from the National Oceanography Centre concluded the image showed a bloom of algae and zooplankton.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Climate Change Lends New Color to the Ocean

The deep-blue sea is turning a touch greener. While that may not seem as consequential as, say, record warm sea surface temperatures, the color of the ocean surface is indicative of the ecosystem that lies beneath. Communities of phytoplankton, microscopic photosynthesizing organisms, abound in near-surface waters and are foundational to the aquatic food web and carbon cycle. This shift in the water’s hue confirms a trend expected under climate change and signals changes to ecosystems within the global ocean, which covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface.

Researchers led by B. B. Cael, a principal scientist at the U.K.’s National Oceanography Centre, revealed that 56 percent of the global sea surface has undergone a significant change in color in the past 20 years. After analyzing ocean color data from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, they found that much of the change stems from the ocean turning more green.

The map above highlights the areas where ocean surface color changed between 2002 and 2022, with darker shades of green representing more-significant differences (higher signal-to-noise ratio). By extension, said Cael, “these are places we can detect a change in the ocean ecosystem in the last 20 years.” The study focused on tropical and subtropical regions, excluding higher latitudes, which are dark for part of the year, and coastal waters, where the data are naturally very noisy.

The black dots on the map indicate the area, covering 12 percent of the ocean’s surface, where chlorophyll levels also changed over the study period. Chlorophyll has been the go-to measurement for remote sensing scientists to gauge phytoplankton abundance and productivity. However, those estimates use only a few colors in the visible light spectrum. The values shown in green are based on the whole gamut of colors and therefore capture more information about the ecosystem as a whole.

A long time series from a single sensor is relatively rare in the remote sensing world. As the Aqua satellite was celebrating its 20th year in orbit in 2022—far exceeding its design life of 6 years—Cael wondered what long term trends could be discovered in the data. In particular, he was curious what might have been missed in all the ocean color information it had collected. “There’s more encoded in the data than we actually make use of,” he said.

By going big with the data, the team discerned an ocean color trend that had been predicted by climate modeling, but one that was expected to take 30-40 years of data to detect using satellite-based chlorophyll estimates. That’s because the natural variability in chlorophyll is high relative to the climate change trend. The new method, incorporating all visible light, was robust enough to confirm the trend in 20 years.

At this stage, it is difficult to say what exact ecological changes are responsible for the new hues. However, the authors posit, they could result from different assemblages of plankton, more detrital particles, or other organisms such as zooplankton. It is unlikely the color changes come from materials such as plastics or other pollutants, said Cael, since they are not widespread enough to register at large scales.

“What we do know is that in the last 20 years, the ocean has become more stratified,” he said. Surface waters have absorbed excess heat from the warming climate, and as a result, they are less prone to mixing with deeper, more nutrient-rich layers. This scenario would favor plankton adapted to a nutrient-poor environment. The areas of ocean color change align well with where the sea has become more stratified, said Cael, but there is no such overlap with sea surface temperature changes.

More insights into Earth’s aquatic ecosystems may soon be on the way. NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite, set to launch in 2024, will return observations in finer color resolution. The new data will enable researchers to infer more information about ocean ecology, such as the diversity of phytoplankton species and the rates of phytoplankton growth.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using data from Cael, B. B., et al. (2023). Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[kingofpolynya]

Burnout or love?

Tumblr looks different now, but I'm still the same. Still working in academia, doing phytoplankton stuff, but not in Japan. I move back to the UK in December 2021 after getting offered a postdoc in Liverpool. Hopefully in January, I'll start my permanent job at the National Oceanography Centre - as a marine biogeochemical model developer. Funny how 11 years ago, I had my first interview to be an Oceanography student. Now I'm going to work there. Time flies..

Life in Japan was quite miserable. I cheated on my (now ex) boyfriend with a colleague. It was a short affair too, but he ended our relationship. I tried making new friends, but I feel sort of worthless that girls in Japan are all very skinny and very prim and proper. I stopped eating breakfast, which spiralled into not eating anything. I ran 5k every evening, and swam 3k 3x a week. I have never felt this pretty before, but everyone said I looked like a holocaust survivor. I still love my job, but I hated everyone (apart from my boss) there. So I need a way out, and I ended up applying for a postdoc with this famous professor, and thanks to divine intervention I got the post. My mother said I am allowed to move back to the UK if I got to normal BMI, so I tried. I even got myself a psychiatrist and a cocktail of mind altering drugs. I just cant stand being surrounded by skinny Japanese girl, so I tried my best. Eventually, I got back to normal bmi after 5 months, and I also got my (ex) boyfriend back, but not for long.

The first year in Liverpool was fun, I get to do 3D and very complex model with many state variables, and different nutrients and plankton component. People were impressed with what I have done, until I joined a cruise from the Falkland Islands back to Southampton in February 2022. It was a 6 week cruise. My (then) boyfriend wasnt keen on me joining the cruise but I enjoyed it a lot. I love the routine, and seeing different plankton swimming about, talking to different scientists, and do yoga almost every day. I have never felt like a scientist before. Almost every day I strive to do my best.

However, after the cruise, I feel like something snapped, and I cannot do science anymore. I feel like it's hard to go back to the normal routine of looking at model output and wondering what might be going on in 2100, under RCP8.5 scenario. My brain fried so hard I think I failed every task. My boss even snapped at me for not being able to ask the 'big picture question'. Perhaps I'm a bad scientist from the beginning and its just somehow lots of people have been carrying me around. I feel like everything is blank and bleak. Maybe I should quit science?

I started getting my 'consciousness' back a few months ago, and only started to grasp what is happening after repeatedly being told off by my boss (what a man with infinite patience). I am starting to grasp what I can do and slowly crawling back into the depths of hell. However, since I know my boss is not keen on me as a postdoc, I decided that I have to leave. So I apply for a different job, a permanent one, and a job where I, hopefully, does not need to ask big picture question. I like getting stuck in and do the coding, and plot my results so I can brainstorm with others to see what is wrong with plankton? Why are things happening like this? I suppose I will never be at my boss' calibre.

Now everyday feels like I'm just trying to survive. I'm starting to hate going to the office and make small talk. I used to enjoy swimming, now it feels like a chore. Eating or cooking isn't enjoyable anymore. Cakes taste stale. I am living on microwaved rice and instant noodles. I dont want to be too skinny again, because I have never swam this fast. The pills that kept me sane dont seem to do their job anymore. All I want is just lay in bed and not doing anything, and cry.

I initially thought that I am starting to lose my sanity because I met someone on the cruise, and fell in love. I split up with my (ex) boyfriend just before I stepped on to dry land, to be with this guy. It worked and fortunately he loves me to. He moved in not long after we finished the cruise. I have never been with someone I love, and maybe this whole 'my brain is broken' thing is because my brain chemistry is not in balance. But I dont know, with him around life do get a bit easier, but all i want to do is just joking around with him and go for long walks on the beach. I cant be bothered doing science anymore, or even just living in general. Have I been showing symptoms of burnout?

I hope my new relationship will last forever. I do hope that he can see me shine, and stays in love with me. I hope my new job will bring me a some happiness, and can make me shine brighter than before.

[thoughtlessarse]

Ancient glass sponges. A Barbie-pink sea pig sauntering along the seafloor. A transparent unicumber hovering in the depths. These wonders are just an initial snapshot of fantastic creatures discovered 1,640 miles (5,000 meters) beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean in a pristine area that’s earmarked as a site for deep-sea mining of critical and rare metals. The natural resources are in high demand for use in solar panels, electric car batteries and other green technologies, among other uses. The 45-day expedition to the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which wrapped March 20, documented biodiversity in the abyssal plain. Using a remotely operated vehicle, the team on board the UK research ship James Cook photographed the deep-sea life and took samples for future study. “We can assume that many of these species will be new to science. Sometimes they have been seen/observed/known before, but not collected or formally described,” said Regen Drennan, a postdoctoral marine biologist at London’s Natural History Museum. “These specimens will be brought to the NHM London to be identified and studied for years to come.” The voyage was the second conducted by a UK initiative known as the Seabed Mining and Resilience to Experimental Impact, or SMARTEX, project, involving the Natural History Museum, National Oceanography Centre, British Geological Survey and other institutions. The US Geological Survey estimates that 21.1 billion dry tons of polymetallic nodules exist in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone — containing more reserves of many critical metals than the world’s land-based reserves combined. If deep-sea mining follows the same trajectory as offshore oil production, more than one-third of these critical metals will come from deep-ocean mines by 2065, the federal agency estimated.

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[newsytv]

In 2023, are you interested in a position at the National Centre for Ocean Information Services (NCOIS)? Ten vacancies for translators, assistants, and scientists are currently being filled by the NCOIS. Candidates that meet the requirements can submit an online application for these positions.

This is a fantastic chance to advance your career in ocean information services. For more information on INCOIS Recruitment 2023 and how to apply online, continue reading. A regular Direct Recruitment and Deputation (including short-term contract basis) for the positions of Scientist, Scientific Assistant, and Junior Hindi Translator has been made by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad. Candidates who match the requirements can apply online between the first of April and the first of May 2023.

INCOIS Recruitment Payscale and Salary:

Scientist – F: Level 13A ₹ 1,31,100 – 2,16,600/-

Scientist – D: Level – 12 ₹ 78,800 – 2,09,200/-

Scientist – C: Level – 11 ₹ 67,700 – 2,08,700/-

Scientific Assistant A: Level – 6 ₹ 35,400 – 1,12,400/-

Junior Hindi Translator: Level – 6 ₹ 35,400 – 1,12,400/-

Opportunities for Scientists - F and D are available at INCOIS, Hyderabad. In order to be considered for these positions, candidates must hold a Master's degree (M.Sc./M.Tech.) in Physical Oceanography/Marine Sciences or a Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Technology in Mechanical for Scientist - F and a Master's degree (M.Sc., M.C.A.) in Computers/Information Technology or a Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Information Technology for Scientist - D from a recognized university or institute with at least A minimum of 16 years of experience is also required for Scientist F, whereas 7 years of experience is required for Scientist D.

To become a Scientist - C, you must have an appropriate Master's degree (M.Sc., M.Tech.) from an approved university or institution, with at least a first class (60% marks) in your qualifying degree or its equivalent. Additionally, it must have at least seven years of relevant experience.

Candidates must have a B.Sc. in computer science, a BCA, or a three-year diploma in computer engineering, computer technology, or information technology with a minimum of 60% marks, or the equivalent qualifications, to be considered for the position of Scientific Assistant A. Candidates must have a Master's degree in Hindi with English as a required or elective subject, as the medium of examination at the degree level, or vice versa to be eligible for the position of Junior Hindi Translator.

How do I apply for an INCOIS position?

For INCOIS Recruitment, online applications will be accepted starting on April 1 at 10:30 AM. By no later than January 5, 2023 at 5:00 PM, qualified candidates must submit their applications online at incois.gov.in. Contact email at vacancies@incois.gov.in if you experience any problems submitting the application. Along with the online application, candidates must upload scanned copies of their documentation for age, experience, and educational background.

[gingerhotelsindia]

When life hits you with boredom, escape to Goa!

Experience Goa's vibrant charm from the tranquil serenity of this upscale Dona Paula hotel, perched on a hilltop. This hotel in Goa has spacious, contemporary rooms with views of the Arabian Sea, a refreshing swimming pool, and the option of a private terrace or balcony. Unwind and enjoy Goa at this one-of-a-kind location. Walking distance from Dona Paula Beach and Vainguinim Beach, Ginger Goa is one of the desired hotels near Dona Paula beach Goa is a great place to unwind. Seek out Ginger Madgaon and Ginger Panjim, two other hotels we have in Goa. 

Are you planning to visit Dona Paula, but stuck on finding good hotels in Goa near beach? Don't worry, Ginger Goa; Dona Paula is the answer to your lodging problems. Experience Goa's vibrant charm from the tranquil serenity of this upscale Dona Paula hotel, perched on a hilltop. An essential 3-star hotel in Panjim, Goa, featuring free internet, a contemporary fitness centre, a swimming pool, a digital locker, in-room dining, an air conditioner, a tea or coffee maker, a mini-refrigerator, an LCD or LED TV for entertainment, and laundry services. For guests who are watching their diets, the resort also offers healthy food options, and adequate safety precautions were made at the time of covid in accordance with ministry rules.

Ginger Goa, Dona Paula one of the best hotels near Dona Paula beach Goa offers rooms with twin and queen room classifications. The hotel also includes particularly constructed rooms for specially-abled, so that they might enjoy a hassle-free, excellent stay. Facilities for late check-in and check-out are also available. Ginger, is certainly one of the top budget hotels in the city and assures you an experience worth every money. It is challenging to locate other hotels that offer the same level of quality services and leisure time for such a low price as Ginger Goa. Being in a prime location about 500 metres from the bus stop allows one to avoid paying for transportation to the hotel.

The Dabolim Airport is only an hour away from Ginger Goa, Dona Paula.

Goa is a paradise of South Asia, situated southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from Deccan Highlands by the Western Ghats. The city is visited by large numbers of international and domestic tourists each year because of its white-sand beaches, active nightlife, places of worship, world heritage listed architecture and also has rich flora and fauna. Goa is loved for its splendid beaches and seafood, right from youngsters to adults, Goa has something for every traveller that makes the city memorable. One can explore water sports, churches, carnivals, history & culture, beauty and so much more.

Dona Paula is a beautiful village located in the Indian state of Goa, known for its stunning views of the Arabian Sea and its serene beaches. Here are some things you can do while visiting Dona Paula:

Visit the Dona Paula View Point: This is a popular spot that offers breathtaking views of the sea and the surrounding landscape.

Spend time at the Dona Paula Beach: This is a beautiful and serene beach where you can relax and soak up the sun.

Take a boat ride: You can take a boat ride from the Dona Paula Jetty to explore the nearby beaches and islands.

Visit the National Institute of Oceanography: This is a fascinating research institute that is open to the public, where you can learn about the marine life of the region.

Explore the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary: This is a beautiful bird sanctuary that is home to a wide variety of bird species.

Try the local cuisine: Dona Paula is known for its delicious seafood, so be sure to try some of the local dishes.

Visit the Cabo Raj Bhavan: This is a beautiful and historic building that was once the official residence of the Governor of Goa.

Take a sunset walk: Dona Paula is known for its beautiful sunsets, so take a stroll along the beach or the Dona Paula View Point to experience this natural beauty.

Ginger Dona Paula is among good hotels in Goa near beach. Look no further and book an amazing holiday package with Ginger now. 

[wafact]

Global Internet Connectivity Is at Risk from Climate Disasters

The flow of digital information through fiber-optic cables lining the sea floor could be compromised by climate change. That’s according to new research published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews by scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre and the University of Central Florida. They found that ocean and nearshore disturbances caused by extreme weather events have…

[todaynewsguru]

Dr Thamban Meloth takes charge as director of Goa-based NCPOR

Dr Thamban Meloth takes charge as director of Goa-based NCPOR

Senior scientist Dr Thamban Meloth has been appointed the director of Goa-based National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), an institute operating under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. Since August, he has been acting as the director-in-charge of the institute, which he joined in 2002. He has previously served in CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, and Kannur University in…

[indizombie]

The flow of digital information through fiber-optic cables lining the sea floor could be compromised by climate change. That's according to new research published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews by scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre and the University of Central Florida. They found that ocean and nearshore disturbances caused by extreme weather events have exposed “hot spots” along the transglobal cable network, increasing the risk of internet outages.

Daniel Cusick, ‘Global Internet Connectivity Is at Risk from Climate Disasters’, Scientific American

[mbari-blog]

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What do you call the largest aggregation of fishes ever recorded below 3,000 meters? An eel swarm. No really, that’s what it was, a massive swarm of eels.

A team of oceanographers from the University of Hawai‘i, MBARI, and the UK National Oceanography Centre recently discovered the largest aggregation of fishes ever recorded at abyssal depths (below 3,000 meters or 9,800 feet) in the ocean.

“Our observations truly surprised us,” said Astrid Leitner, a postdoctoral fellow at MBARI and lead author on the study. “We had never seen reports of such high numbers of fishes in the sparsely-populated, food-limited deep sea.”

Leitner conducted this work as a graduate researcher at the University of Hawai‘i School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). She and her colleagues made the observations during an expedition to the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a large region in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific between Hawai‘i and Mexico. The CCZ has been proposed as an area for the deep-sea mining of nodules containing metals such as copper, cobalt, zinc, and manganese.

Learn more about Astrid’s research on eels and other deep-sea fishes and their habitats in this week’s Mysteries of the Deep livestream with our friends over @montereybayaquarium​.

[jkottke]

The Gulf Stream, the Cold Blob, and a Potentially Frozen Europe

The NY Times has a fantastic interactive piece about a particularly disturbing aspect of the climate crisis: the evidence that a huge Atlantic circulation pattern is weakening and could collapse, leading to "a monstrous change" in temperature, precipitation, and other chaotic effects across the globe.

Now, a spate of studies, including one published last week, suggests this northern portion of the Gulf Stream and the deep ocean currents it's connected to may be slowing. Pushing the bounds of oceanography, scientists have slung necklace-like sensor arrays across the Atlantic to better understand the complex network of currents that the Gulf Stream belongs to, not only at the surface, but hundreds of feet deep.

"We're all wishing it's not true," Peter de Menocal, a paleoceanographer and president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said of the changing ocean currents. "Because if that happens, it's just a monstrous change."

The consequences could include faster sea level rise along parts of the Eastern United States and parts of Europe, stronger hurricanes barreling into the Southeastern United States, and perhaps most ominously, reduced rainfall across the Sahel, a semi-arid swath of land running the width of Africa that is already a geopolitical tinderbox.

One of the potential reasons for this weakening is that the quickly melting Greenland ice sheet is dumping massive amounts of cold fresh water into the North Atlantic, disrupting the Gulf Stream. This is "the cold blob".

The northern arm of the Gulf Stream is but one tentacle of a larger, ocean-spanning tangle of currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. Scientists have strong evidence from ice and sediment cores that the AMOC has weakened and shut down before in the past 13,000 years. As a result, mean temperatures in parts of Europe may have rapidly dropped to about 15 degrees Celsius below today's averages, ushering in arctic like conditions. Parts of northern Africa and northern South America became much drier. Rainfall may even have declined as far away as what is now China. And some of these changes may have occurred in a matter of decades, maybe less.

The AMOC is thus a poster child for the idea of climatic "tipping points" -- of hard-to-predict thresholds in Earth's climate system that, once crossed, have rapid, cascading effects far beyond the corner of the globe where they occur. "It's a switch," said Dr. de Menocal, and one that can be thrown quickly.

Which brings us to the cold blob. Almost everywhere around the world, average temperatures are rising -- except southeast of Greenland where a large patch of the North Atlantic has become colder in recent years.

The title of this post references a "frozen Europe" but because the Earth is a nonlinear system, a weakened AMOC could actually have the opposite effect:

Scientists at the U.K.'s National Oceanography Centre have somewhat counterintuitively linked the cold blob in the North Atlantic with summer heat waves in Europe. In 2015 and 2018, the jet stream, a river of wind that moves from west to east over temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere, made an unusual detour to the south around the cold blob. The wrinkle in atmospheric flow brought hotter-than-usual air into Europe, they contend, breaking temperature records.

"That was not predicted," said Joel Hirschi, principal scientist at the centre and senior author of the research. It highlights how current seasonal forecasting models are unable to predict these warm summers. And it underscores the paradox that, far from ushering in a frigid future for, say, Paris, a cooler North Atlantic might actually make France's summers more like Morocco's.

(thx, meg)

[nuadox]

Oceanography: Environmental protection could benefit from ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ thinking

- By University of Southampton -

Scientists at the University of Southampton have conducted a study that highlights the importance of studying a full range of organisms when measuring the impact of environmental change – from tiny bacteria, to mighty whales.

Researchers at the University’s School of Ocean and Earth Science, working with colleagues at the universities of Bangor, Sydney and Johannesburg and the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, undertook a survey of marine animals, protists (single cellular organisms) and bacteria along the coastline of South Africa. Lead researcher and postgraduate student at the University of Southampton, Luke Holman explains: “Typically, biodiversity and biogeography studies focus on one group of species at a time, often animals. Studying animals, protist and bacteria together – organisms vastly different in size, separated by billions of years of evolution – gave us the opportunity to take a broader view of the marine ecosystem. We discovered remarkably consistent biogeographic groupings for the three across the coastline – consistent with previously studied patterns, driven by regional currents.”

Findings are published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The team took seawater samples in numerous locations along the length of the South African coast, from the warmer seas of the east, to the cooler waters of the west and the intermediate temperatures in the south. The samples were filtered, had environmental DNA extracted and underwent sophisticated lab analysis to indicate the diverse range of organisms found in particular locations. Results showed a broad range of animals living in the sea along the whole length of coast, but with differences in the exact species in warm, cold and intermediate regions. This same pattern of difference was also shown in bacteria and protists – demonstrating consistency in the biodiversity of life for each region.

Furthermore, the scientists found that among the variables examined temperature had the greatest impact on determining the diversity of animals and bacteria, whereas protists were associated more with chlorophyll concentration in the water. The team also revealed that while all three groups were affected to some extent by human activity, such as shipping, fishing and building of marinas, this wasn’t to the extent they’d expected.~ Commenting on the study, Luke said: “We hope our work encourages researchers to consider other groups of organisms, both in biogeographic assessments and marine protection and restoration projects. For example, a project aiming to restore a coral reef might also need to consider the bacterial communities, or the protection of a river system might also ensure the protists communities are monitored in addition to the fish.” Moving forwards the team hope to learn more about the causes and consequences of global marine biodiversity change for all life, from microscopic bacteria and protists to macroscopic organisms like fish and marine mammals.

--

Source: University of Southampton

Full study: “Animals, protists and bacteria share marine biogeographic patterns”, Nature Ecology and Evolution.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01439-7

Read Also

New mangrove forest mapping tool puts conservation in reach of coastal communities

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Nation of Change:

A recent study by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC),  found there is at least 10 times more plastic in the Atlantic than previously thought. The mass of ‘invisible’ microplastics found in the upper waters of the Atlantic Ocean is approximately 12- 21 million tonnes.

“Previously, we couldn’t balance the mass of floating plastic we observed with the mass we thought had entered the ocean since 1950. This is because earlier studies hadn’t been measuring the concentrations of ‘invisible’ microplastic particles beneath the ocean surface. Our research is the first to have done this across the entire Atlantic, from the UK to the Falklands,” says lead author of the paper, Dr. Katsiaryna Pabortsava.

This study, however, only measured the three most common types of microplastic in the upper levels of the ocean. The researchers estimate that the Atlantic’s total plastic load is closer to 200 million tonnes (approximately 220.4 million U.S. tons). That is much higher than the previous estimate of 17 million to 47 million tonnes (approximately 19 to 52 million U.S. tons) of plastic released into the Atlantic between 1950 and 2015, reports EcoWatch.