The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — page 3 — What disturbed Moore most was that he was hundreds of miles from shore This far out the ocean should have been pristine Instead Moore saw bottles bottle caps wrappers fishing nets scraps of film and other bits of floating plastic It seemed unbelievable Moore recounted 1 NORTH PACIFIC SUBTROPICAL HIGH The North Pacific subtropical high is an area of high pressure over the northern part of the Pacific Ocean In high-pressure systems storms and moisture are diverted around the area Dense air sinks and warms leaving areas with weak winds and sluggish ocean currents This part of the ocean was typically avoided by seafarers because it is so calm somewhat of an ocean desert It lies along the same latitudes as some of the world’s great deserts that are similarly affected by high atmospheric pressure In many parts of the world it is common for trash to litter streets sidewalks and parks Even in ports and on beaches litter is not uncommon But for Moore who grew up sailing and swimming in the ocean the deep sea was the one place that had always been free of human detritus That there was debris so far from land in a remote part of the ocean bothered Moore so profoundly that he couldn’t stop thinking about it Looking back at his logbook from the voyage Moore read notes about seeing trash for seven consecutive days In that time his crew had covered more than 1,000 nautical miles 1,850 km Moore had come across an accumulation of debris a garbage patch that had been predicted a decade earlier by scientists 2 It later came to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch WHAT IS THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in the North Pacific Ocean It is a collection of marine debris that is the result of rotating ocean currents between Japan and the United States 6

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — page 4 — Most of the plastics and trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will not break down over time 7

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — page 5 — A lot of people hear the word patch and they immediately think of almost like a blanket of trash that can easily be scooped up but actually these areas are always moving and changing with the currents and it’s mostly these tiny plastics that you can’t immediately see with the naked eye 4 Dianna Parker NOAA Marine Debris Program June 2014 TRAPPED IN ARCTIC ICE Ocean currents have taken debris as far as the Arctic where micro plastics have been found frozen in the ice Recent studies of the ice have found hundreds of particles trapped in 35 cubic feet 1 cu m This is a much greater concentration of plastic than in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Moreover as the ice melts it releases the plastics back into the ocean Researchers from Dartmouth College estimated that 1 trillion bits of micro plastics could be freed from the ice by 2024 5 These rotating currents called gyres are like giant whirlpools that concentrate the debris in one area The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually composed of two separate patches the Eastern Garbage Patch and the Western Garbage Patch The eastern patch is located between Hawaii and the mainland United States while the western patch is off the coast of Japan These two patches are connected by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre a large area of 7 7 million square miles 20 million sq km where several Pacific currents interact 3 In this convergence zone where winds from different areas meet the massive circular current moves in a clockwise direction Over the span of years it can take debris from Japan to the United States and back again No one knows exactly the size of the garbage patch in the Pacific It is important to understand that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not an island or a raft of trash bound together nor is it confined to a specific point It is simply an area where debris is concentrated and freely floating through the ocean Further it is not visible from the air or by satellite because most of the debris is below the surface of the water and much of the collection is made up of micro debris Often people 8

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — page 6 — North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone Western Garbage Patch California Eastern Garbage Patch or N Pacific subtropical high North Equatorial Wind and waves help spread garbage over large areas in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch though little of it can be seen by the naked eye

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