POSTER Session 3

SPACEBORNE QUANTIFICATION OF OCEAN PLASTICS (SQOOP): INFORMATION CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SIMULATED AND HISTORIC OCEAN COLOR SPECTRA

Floating microplastics concentrate along large-scale convergence zones in the five major ocean basins. Here, a feasibility study of detecting floating microplastics from spectral reflectance anomalies was conducted using historic imagery and simulations. A new spectral endmember represents natural biofilmed microplastic from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” that includes absorption by the red algae Tsunamia. Extensive simulations of mixed pixels of floating biofilmed microplastic were conducted by varying chlorophyll concentrations [Chl], atmospheric conditions and instrument and solar viewing geometries. Simulations at the Top of Atmosphere reveal that increases in floating microplastics will produce predictable trends in retrieved aerosol optical thickness, aerosol angstrom coefficient, and [Chl] values. Analysis of the historic MODIS ocean color satellite record confirm that long-term increases in floating microplastics are not observable with present ocean color imagery. An information content analysis of the uncertainty estimates and retrieval error covariance matrices revealed that microplastics generally must represent more than 0.01 fractional coverage at the sea surface to be detectable or 100 times more concentrated than ever measured for at least 95% probability of detection under different environmental and observational conditions. Under high wind or Asian dust aerosols, microplastics must represent 0.1 fractional coverage or more. Presently, our studies suggest that floating microplastics with biofilm are not concentrated enough to impact our long-term climate-quality ocean color data records.

Heidi Dierssen, University of Connecticut Avery Point, USA, [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4276-5530

Amir Ibrahim, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, [email protected]

Kirk Knobelspiesse, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, [email protected]

Graham Trolley, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, [email protected]

Jacek Chowdhary, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA, [email protected]

Matteo Ottaviani, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA, [email protected]

Oskar Landi, Landi Photography, USA, [email protected]

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