Polarquest 2018 Expedition: Plastic Debris at 82°07' North

Abstract

Many human perturbations have the potential of destabilizing the present functioning of the environment and marine plastic is one of them. Plastic debris was found everywhere on Earth, including polar waters. The Polarquest 2018 expedition around Svalbard (July and August 2018) used sustainable sail vessel Nanuq as a platform to sample microplastic in seawater and macro debris stranded on beaches. Eight stations were sampled trawling a Manta net in the top 50 cm of surface water and four stations filtering surface seawater from buckets. A record-breaking Manta net sample was carried out on the edge of the North Pole ice shelf at a latitude of 82°07' N. Flying drones made visual observations of debris on beaches of Alpiniøya island (North-East Svalbard) with ground truth by human visual sightings. Citizen science cruises in the Arctic are likely to increase in the next years due to ice-free ocean parallel to growing interest in plastic in the ocean. The number of clean-ups and microplastic surveys are likely to increase as well and Polarquest 2018 was the first expedition of this kind to reach and sample beyond 82° N.