The Hub Talks: Mapping the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of marine plastic litter: The need for measuring ocean surface currents

May 29 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm CEST

Speaker: Erik van Sebille is a professor of oceanography and public engagement at Utrecht University, where he also received his PhD in 2009. He has worked at the University of Miami, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and Imperial College in London. Erik investigates how ocean currents move ‘stuff’ around. He is the lead developer of the open-source OceanParcels.org code for Lagrangian Ocean Analysis. He is co-author of the textbook ‘Ocean Currents – Physical Drivers in a Changing World’ with Professor Robert Marsh. He led the European Research Council Starting Grant project ‘Tracking Of Plastics in Our Seas’ and is now leading the project ‘Tracing Marine Macroplastics by Unraveling the Ocean’s Multiscale Transport Processes’. In parallel to his ongoing work in physical oceanography, he leads a research team on how scientists can be effective and inclusive in their communication and engagement with society, specifically on the climate crisis.

Abstract: The world’s ocean currents can transport floating material like plastic and plankton over very large distances. Understanding how the transport varies over time and space requires fine-resolution observations of the surface currents. Most Earth Observation techniques in operation now measure the large-scale geostrophic flow field, but miss the direct effects of winds and waves on the transport of floating material. In this seminar, I will make the case why accurate and near-real-time measurements of ocean surface currents is important for understanding the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the plastic soup and the formation of hotspots of high plastic concentrations.