Even at the Bottom of the World, the Ocean is Belching Plastic – EOS Magazine

Aukland from Rangitoto (by Georgie Sharp CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr).

In a recent study published in Environmental Science and Technology, researchers report a mist of microplastics is constantly drifting across the country’s largest city.

“We don’t produce large amounts of plastics here in New Zealand,” said Joel Rindelaub, a research fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who led the study. “But we did see large amounts of plastics falling out of the sky in Auckland…”

Global Weather Patterns and Coastlines

Coasts are sensitive to sea level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of storms, increases in precipitation, and warmer ocean temperatures. In addition, rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing the oceans to absorb more of the gas and become more acidic. This rising acidity can have significant impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems.

The impacts of climate change are likely to worsen problems that coastal areas already face. Confronting existing challenges that affect man-made infrastructure and coastal ecosystems, such as shoreline erosion, coastal flooding, and water pollution, is already a concern in many areas. Addressing the additional stress of climate change may require new approaches to managing land, water, waste, and ecosystems…

Rivers in the Sky

A powerful storm formed above the Pacific Ocean battering the U.S. West Coast seen by a weather satellite in January 2023. (image courtesy of Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere - CIRA - between Colorado State University and NOAA via Space.com).

Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow…

Coastal erosion and landfill exposure: Future impacts of climate change – Legal Futures

Lyme Regis seafront looking towards landslips and former landfill, 2019 (by Darren Haddock CC BY-SA 2.0 via geograph.org.uk).

The UK’s historic coastline is a ticking pollution time bomb that is being rapidly accelerated by the impacts of climate change and landfill exposure…

As an island nation the UK has the largest coastline in Europe of 17,381km and is surrounded by four water bodies (Atlantic ocean, North Sea, Irish Sea and English Channel). For this reason, 28% of the UK’s coastline is vulnerable to coastal erosion as climate change has accelerated rising sea levels and increasingly hazardous weather…