Transport and vertical distribution of sinking microplastics in the Mediterranean Sea
Channel: Instituto de Física Interdisciplinar y Sistemas Complejos (IFISC)
Date: 2020-06-04

- By:  Rebeca de la Fuente
- IFISC
- Date: 2020-06-03 T15:00:00+00:00

Abstract

We study the vertical distribution and dispersion of sinking microplastics in a realistic model of the Mediterranean sea. We first analyse the equations of motion describing the dynamics of the typical non-buoyant microplastic driven by the oceanic flow attending to their physical properties: size and density.  We then analyse the dispersion processess as particles sink, observing transient spatial distributions following different laws, from anomalous to normal distributions, related to the properties of the flow.