The wear of car tires, brake pads and streets promotes ice formation in clouds and can therefore influence the climate. The small plastic particles work as a desert fabric as ice cream cores where drops of water freeze.
The Viennese meteorologist Andreas Stohl reports in the “Journal of Geophysical Research” over some world regions of up to 40 percent of microplastics ice cream cores. That is why climate models must be taken into account. “In itself, water in the atmosphere would only freeze near 40 degrees Celsius,” the researcher explains. The freezer process would take place at about 18 minutes degrees on an ice cream made of desert fabric, and around minus 20 degrees Celsius is required for plastic particles. “If an ice cream core is microplastics only a little less efficient than desert fabric,” he explained.
Hardly any data about released microplastics
With his research team he wanted to investigate how great the influence of microplastics on ice cloud formation is. “Unfortunately, there are hardly any reliable data available, how much of it comes from a wide range of sources in the atmosphere,” said Stohl. For example, there would be no reliable measurements or calculations with regard to the quantity that is emitted by the wear of synthetic fiber clothing, or standing up from the “Pacific Garbage Strudel”, a collection of thousands of tons of plastic waste in the northern Pacific.
“The data situation is best with microplastic emissions of road traffic,” he said. They mainly come from the wear of tires, brake pads, street markings and asphalt. In the latter, component bitumen is often provided with plastic polymers to make it less brittle at low temperatures, more distortion resistant and longer.
With computer models, the researchers calculated how much of such traffic traffic microplasty comes in the air: the tire slide control lands less than one to 40 percent in the atmosphere, from brake pads a third to everything, one to four percent in markings, and for polymers of road surfaces ten percent Until a third.
Microplastics stay in the atmosphere for much longer than desert sand
“This microplasty stays in the atmosphere for a maximum of seven times longer than desert sand,” said Stohl. It is lighter and its irregular shape, which compares with round sand grains, contributes to a more extensive stay in the air. “This makes microplastics relatively important for cloud formation, especially in areas where hardly any natural ice cream cores are made of desert fabric or traces,” the meteorologist is convinced.
Microplastics in such a mixed mixed phase clouds of the tropics can, for example, place up to 40 percent of the ice cream cores, and for circular (spring clouds) over the Antarctica. “The difference in these two types of clouds is that with mixed phase clouds of water droplets that contain ice cream cores, ice cream forms directly from water vapor for Ciras,” he explained.
The extra ice seeds made from microplastics can make the clouds much more ice in some regions. This reflects more light. Because the plastic particles float longer in the air than desert fabric, this probably also extends their lifespan. This must be taken into account in the climate models in the future, says the expert.
Source: Krone
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