The plastic flood is already spreading throughout the Arctic

The flood of plastic has reached all spheres of the Arctic: large amounts of plastic, carried by rivers, air and ships, can now be found in the Arctic Ocean.

According to a newly published international review study by the Alfred Wegener Institute, high concentrations of microplastics can be found in water, on the seabed, on remote beaches, in rivers, and even in ice and snow.

Plastic is not just a burden on ecosystems; it could also worsen climate change. The study has just been published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

“The Arctic is still supposed to be a largely untouched desert,” AWI expert Dr. Melanie Bergmann says in a statement.

“In our review, which we conducted together with colleagues from Norway, Canada and the Netherlands, we show that this perception no longer reflects reality. Our northernmost ecosystems are already particularly affected by climate change. This is now exacerbated by plastic pollution. And our own research has shown that pollution continues to get worse.”

The article paints a bleak picture. Although the Arctic is sparsely populated, in virtually every habitat, from beaches and the water column to the seafloor, it shows a similar level of plastic pollution as densely populated regions around the world. Pollution comes from both local and distant sources. Particularly contributing to this are the ocean currents of the Atlantic and the North Sea, and of the North Pacific over the Bering Strait.

The wind also carries tiny microplastic particles to the north. Then there are the rivers: Although the Arctic Ocean represents only one percent of the total volume of the world’s oceans, it receives more than 10 percent of the global discharge of water from rivers, which transport plastic to the ocean, for example, from Siberia.

When seawater off the Siberian coast freezes in the fall, suspended microplastics become trapped in the ice. The transpolating drift current transports the ice floes into the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard, where it melts in the summer, releasing its plastic load.

Some of the most important local sources of pollution are municipal waste and sewage from Arctic communities and plastic waste from ships, especially fishing boats, whose nets and ropes pose a serious problem. Whether intentionally dumped into the ocean or inadvertently lost, they account for a large part of the plastic debris in the European Arctic sector: On one beach in Svalbard, almost 100 percent of the plastic mass washed ashore came from fishing according to the study.

“Unfortunately, there are very few studies on the effects of plastic on Arctic marine organisms”Bergmann explains.

“But there is evidence that the consequences there are similar to those in the best-studied regions: also in the Arctic, many animals – polar bears, seals, reindeer and seabirds – get entangled in plastic and die. In the Arctic, too, unintentionally ingested microplastic likely leads to reduced growth and reproduction, physiological stress and inflammation in the tissues of marine animals, and even runs through the blood of humans.”

Available data on possible feedback effects between plastic waste and climate change are particularly scarce. “Here, there is an urgent need for more research,” says the AWI expert. “Initial studies indicate that trapped microplastic changes the characteristics of sea ice and snow.” For example, the dark particles could mean that the ice absorbs more sunlight and therefore melts faster.

In turn, due to what is known as ice albedo feedback, this can intensify global warming. Furthermore, plastic particles in the atmosphere provide condensation nuclei for clouds and rain, which means they could influence the weather and, in the long term, the climate. And last but not least, over its life cycle, plastics are currently responsible for 4.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.