Trillions of tiny bits of plastic pollutant materials trapped in Arctic ice

A team of researchers with Dartmouth College in the U.S. and the University of Plymouth in the U.K. has found that a massive amount of tiny bits of rayon, plastics and other man-made materials are embedded in Arctic sea ice.

In their paper published in the journal Earth's Future, the team describes how they found evidence of the materials in core samples taken in 2005 and 2010 and note that as Arctic sea ice melts, the embedded material will be released into the ocean, likely causing problems for marine life.

We all use plastics and other materials every day, but few of us give much thought to what happens to it after we toss it in the trash after it's no longer useful to us.

A lot of it winds up in landfills, of course, but a lot goes missing and now it appears that the researchers studying core samples, may have found where it's gone: it's been captured in Arctic sea ice, torn apart into tiny pieces during the journey there.

The rayon and plastic bits aren't noticeable to a person walking around in the Arctic because the pieces are so small, typically less than 5 millimeters in length. It's in the form of beads, fibers or irregular fragments.

Scientists have observed such material in the ocean before, particularly around garbage islands such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but never before have scientists noticed them in ice cores taken from the top of the world.

The researchers don't see any imminent threat from the embedded materials, the problem is that global warming is causing Arctic sea ice to melt, and as it does so, it will release the captured material into the sea, and no one knows what sort of impact that will have.

Most of the materials aren't expected to be toxic, but many are known to soak up chemicals, like a sponge. If the chemicals are toxic and an animal eats them, it likely would get sick or die.

In counting the number of bits of material in the ice cores and estimating the amount of ice they are in, the researchers have concluded that there might be in the neighborhood of a trillion pieces of the stuff in position ready to be released into the world's northern oceans.

A little over half of the bits were rayon, the researchers report, others were polypropylene, acrylic, nylon, polyester, polyethylene and polystyrene.

More information: Global warming releases microplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice, Earth's Future, DOI: 10.1002/2014EF000240

Scientific Consensus on Human cause of Climate Change

Giant tabular icebergs surrounded by ice drift in Vincennes Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory on January 11, 2008. 

A review of thousands of studies published over 21 years found "overwhelming" and growing consensus among scientists that humans are mostly to blame for global warming, its authors said Thursday.

A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.

John Cook

The study is the most comprehensive yet and identified 4000 summaries, otherwise known as abstracts, from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 per cent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW) Led by John Cook at the University of Queensland, the study has been published today, Thursday 16 May, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study went one step further, asking the authors of these papers to rate their entire paper using the same criteria.

Over 2000 papers were rated and among those that discussed the cause of recent global warming, 97 per cent endorsed the consensus that it is caused by humans.

The findings are in stark contrast to the public's position on global warming; a 2012 poll revealed that more than half of Americans either disagree, or are unaware, that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is warming because of human activity.

John Cook said: "Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary."

"There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception. It's staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming."

"This is significant because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they're more likely to support policies that take action on it."

More information:
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, by John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs and Andrew Skuce, 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024. iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

Central Arctic Ocean: Frost Flowers contain bacteria colonies

These beautiful and other-worldly photographs of ice were taken last year by University of Washington graduate student Jeff Bowman and his professor Jody Deming while they worked on a study combining oceanography, microbiology, and planetary sciences in the central Arctic Ocean as part of the Integrated Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program.

Credit Photos: Matthias Wietz.

Their single focus was the study of frost flowers, a strange phenomenon where frost grows from imperfections in the surface ice amid extreme sub-zero temperatures nearing -22C or -7.6F, forming spiky structures that have been found to house micro-organisms.

In fact, the bacteria found in the frost flowers is much more dense than in the frozen water below it, meaning each flower is essentially a temporary ecosystem, not unlike a coral reef. Via IGERT:

Around their research icebreaker in the central Arctic Ocean new ice grows on long open cracks that network amongst the thick floes of pack ice. Abruptly the surface of this new ice changes texture.

The cold, moist air above the open cracks becomes saturated and frost begins to form wherever an imperfection can be found on the ice surface.

From these nucleation points the flower-like frost structures grow vertically, quickly rising to centimeters in height.

The hollow tendrils of these “frost flowers” begin to wick moisture from the ice surface, incorporating salt, marine bacteria, and other substances as they grow.

The fog dissipates and the Arctic sun lights the surface of the frost flowers, initiating a cascade of chemical reactions.

These reactions can produce formaldehyde, deplete ozone, and actually alter the chemical composition of the lower atmosphere.

Bowman and Deming have discovered that bacteria are consistently more abundant in frost flowers than in sea ice.

Since microscopic pockets in sea ice are known to support an active community of psychrophiles (cold-loving microorganisms), even in the coldest months of the year, these results are encouraging.

Psychrophiles or cryophiles are extremophilic organisms that are capable of growth and reproduction in cold temperatures

Bowman and Deming are currently building an ultra-clean chamber where they can grow artificial frost flowers and hope that their research leads to a better understanding of how life might be able to survive in extreme conditions elsewhere in the universe. 

NASA Terra Satellite Image: Arctic Ice Melt in Northwest Passage

This image, taken on Aug. 3, 2012, shows that most of the ice in the Parry Channel, part of the Northwest Passage, has melted away.

CREDIT: NASA Earth Observatory

Sea ice has melted and part of the Arctic's Northwest Passage has opened, images captured by NASA's Terra satellite show.

An image taken on July 17 shows ice filled Parry Channel, part of the Passage, at that point. The second photo, taken two weeks later on Aug. 3, shows that most of the ice has melted away.

The Canadian Ice Service reported that ice cover in Parry Channel began to fall below the 30-year median level in mid-July, and the melting sped up in the following two weeks. At the end of July, there was only an ice cover of 30 percent, compared to a median of 79 percent.

While the Parry Channel appears almost entirely free of ice, it's not necessarily open for ships to pass through, according to a NASA release. Sea ice can be thin enough to avoid detection by satellite sensors yet still thick enough to impede ships.

Whether or not ships can easily pass, recent studies have suggested that certain organisms have begun to take advantage of the open water. When the Northwest Passage opened in 2007, a study found that a type of plankton usually found in the Pacific had turned up in the North Atlantic.

Another study found that Pacific and Atlantic populations of Bowhead whale began to overlap in the Northwest Passage in 2010, according to the release.

The search for a shortcut between Europe and Asia though the Arctic dates back to Columbus's journey to the Americas. For centuries, attempts failed due to unfamiliar geography and unforgiving ice.

The passage was first successfully navigated by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in 1906. He used the southern route through the Northwest Passage; Parry Channel is part of the northern, shorter route.