Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Instituttveien 18, 2007, Kjeller, Norway.
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), 2361, Laxenburg, Austria.
Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 14;11(1):3381. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17201-9.
In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPs - tire wear particles and BWPs - brake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiencies of these particles to remote regions. About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (100 kt yr and 40 kt yr respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr). We suggest that the Arctic may be a particularly sensitive receptor region, where the light-absorbing properties of TWPs and BWPs may also cause accelerated warming and melting of the cryosphere.
近年来，海洋、淡水和陆地的微塑料污染已经得到了广泛的讨论，而大气中的微塑料传输则在很大程度上被忽视了。在这里，我们呈现了道路交通（TWPs-轮胎磨损颗粒和 BWPs-刹车磨损颗粒）产生的大气中微塑料颗粒传输的全球模拟，这是一个可以相对准确量化的主要来源。我们发现这些颗粒向偏远地区的传输效率很高。大约 34%的粗 TWPs 和 30%的粗 BWPs（分别为 100kt yr 和 40kt yr）被沉积在世界海洋中。这些数量与估计的 TWPs 和纤维直接及河流向海洋的总传输量（64kt yr）相当。我们认为北极可能是一个特别敏感的受体区域，其中 TWPs 和 BWPs 的光吸收特性也可能导致极地地区的加速升温与融化。
