Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: amalia on 08/11/2019 12:01:05

Title: Do plastics in the ocean contribute to global warming?
Post by: amalia on 08/11/2019 12:01:05

Angela wrote to us to understand global warming better:
Are plastics in our oceans speeding up global warming, given that they are quite good at insulating?
Can you help?

Title: Re: Do plastics in the ocean contribute to global warming?
Post by: Petrochemicals on 05/12/2019 20:44:11

There may be  a minimal effect but it is negligable,  even though the ammount of plastics is large, compared to the surface  area of water it is small. Even the "garbage island" of floating plastic is not continuous plastic, but a denser concentration of floating plastics.

Title: Re: Do plastics in the ocean contribute to global warming?
Post by: syhprum on 05/12/2019 21:45:26

I feel confident that plastic eating microbes will soon evolve and deal with the problem.