Scientists find microplastics in clouds – 09/27/2023 – Environment

A group of scientists has confirmed the existence of microplastics in clouds. For the researchers who made this finding, the particles have the potential to affect the climate.

In a paper published in Environmental Chemistry Letters, Japanese scientists climbed Mount Fuji and Mount Oyama to collect water from the fog that shrouds the mountain tops.

They then analyzed the samples to determine their physical and chemical properties.

The team identified nine types of polymers and one type of rubber in airborne microplastics, ranging in size from 7.1 to 94.6 micrometers.

Each liter of cloud water contained 6.7 to 13.9 plastic particles.

Hydrophilic polymers were abundant, suggesting that these particles play an important role in the rapid formation of clouds and, therefore, weather systems.

“If the issue of air contamination by plastic is not addressed proactively, climate change and ecological risks could become a reality, causing irreversible and serious environmental damage in the future”, warned, this Wednesday (27), the The study’s lead author, Hiroshi Okochi of Waseda University, said in a statement.

When microplastics reach the upper layer of the atmosphere and are exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, they degrade, contributing to the generation of greenhouse gases, Okochi added.

Microplastics are plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters. They come from industrial emissions, textiles, synthetic tires and personal care products, among others.

They have been found inside fish in the depths of the oceans, in Arctic sea ice and in the snow of the Pyrenees mountains, between France and Spain.

But it is not yet known how the transport of these particles works. “To our knowledge, this is the first report on microplastics suspended in cloud water,” the study authors wrote in a paper.

Research has shown that microplastics affect health, for example, the heart and lungs, in addition to causing environmental damage.