State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China.
State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Nov 25;849:157702. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157702. Epub 2022 Jul 29.
Atmospheric transport has been recognized as an important route for microplastics (MPs) entering the ocean since the early 2019s, yet little data of their distribution patterns in marine air are currently available. In this study, we conducted continuous measurements of atmospheric MPs in the marine boundary layer across the western Pacific Ocean. Results suggested that synthetic MPs comprised 25.89 % of all identified particles, with the most being cotton and cellulose (51.68 %). Research revealed that atmospheric synthetic microfibers (22.54 %) are higher than the proportion of the surface oceanic synthetic microfibers (8.20 %) in the recent study. Further, the size of airborne MP fibers over open ocean is probably not the limiting factor during long-range transport. The mean abundance of atmospheric MPs over the western Pacific Ocean during sampling period was 0.841 ± 0.698 items/100 m. Regression analysis revealed an exponential relationship between average MP abundance and average longitude of sampled stations, and the average abundance of airborne MPs in coastal megacity is three orders of magnitude higher than that in sampled marine air of western Pacific. This study provides a better understanding on the impact of atmospheric transport of MPs within the global plastic cycle.
自 21 世纪初以来，大气传输已被认为是微塑料（MPs）进入海洋的重要途径，但目前有关海洋空气中 MPs 分布模式的数据很少。在这项研究中，我们对整个西太平洋海洋边界层中的大气 MPs 进行了连续测量。结果表明，合成 MPs 占所有已识别颗粒的 25.89%，其中最多的是棉花和纤维素（51.68%）。研究表明，大气合成微纤维（22.54%）的比例高于最近研究中海洋表面合成微纤维（8.20%）的比例。此外，在长途运输过程中，开阔海洋上空的空气传播 MP 纤维的大小可能不是限制因素。在采样期间，西太平洋大气 MPs 的平均丰度为 0.841±0.698 个/100m。回归分析显示，平均 MP 丰度与采样站平均经度之间存在指数关系，沿海特大城市空气中的空气传播 MPs 平均丰度比西太平洋采样海洋空气中的高三个数量级。本研究更好地了解了大气传输 MPs 在全球塑料循环中的影响。
