From NOAA’s National Ocean Service: “The name "Pacific Garbage Patch" has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter—akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs. This is not the case. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, much of the debris is actually small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye” (https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/garbagepatch.html).

With that background, it is hard for me to imagine how the waste patches in the oceanic gyres could be affecting rates of evaporation. There is not a widespread layer of plastic covering large parts of the ocean surface so there should not be a significant barrier to evaporation. Disclaimer: This impression of mine is not actually based on any research, measurements, or modeling that I have done.

Might plastics actually increase cloud formation? Maybe. There is some evidence that plastics in the ocean can lead to increased dimethylsulfide (DMS) production*. After it passes into the atmosphere, DMS gets converted to other sulfur compounds that act as aerosols and cloud condensation nuclei. So, in that sense, plastics in the ocean could lead to more cloud formation, although I have no idea how significant this might be.

(* Savoka et al. 2016. Marine plastic debris emits a keystone infochemical for olfactory foraging seabirds. Science Advances. 2: e1600395)

Dear Paul Manning

The question of the coupling between horizontal chaotic mixing of plastic debris in the oceanic gyres, their subsequent fragmentation, vertical mixing in the surface layer, and interaction with the living organisms providing the condensation nuclei is formidable. I do not see yet any comprehensive model of such a system. Despite this complexity, there are some studies of the problem. The following site covers the basic aspects that may be useful in answering your question:

https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/a-deep-dive-into-plastic-flow-modeling/

My best suggestion to prepare a research to support your proposal is to study techniques discussed by Chaturvedi in: “Mathematical modelling and analysis of plastic waste pollution and its impact on the ocean surface” (In press: Journal of Ocean Engineering and Science).

This article illustrates the methods for establishing a distribution of plastic pollution in the ocean. The next step is to relate this information to changes in cloud cover. Given the role of microorganisms in providing condensation nuclei, we still do not have a complete theory to create a model of this process

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-ocean-plants-geoengineer-brighter-clouds/

My main concern is that ocean plastic has a significant impact on the health of planktonic organisms which are essential for maintaining the ocean food chain, absorbing CO2 and providing a condensation nuclei for the clouds discussed in the site above. I expect that your study under review by the main agencies involved in satellite data will be able to provide evidence that meets my concerns.

For further discussion, please see

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/plastic-pollution-is-contributing-to-climate-change-greenhouse-gas

would the stratified chaos theory apply if we present a microbe of plastic ?