Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 329, Issue 5996, Pages 1185-1188Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192321
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Funding
- National Science Foundation [OCE-0842727]
- Hollis and Ermine Lovell Charitable Foundation
- National Fish and Wildlife Foundation [2008-0066-006]
- NASA [NNX08AR49G, NA17RJ1230]
- Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), NASA [NNX07AG53G]
- NASA [NNX08AR49G, 95521] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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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.
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