The equatorial Atlantic Ocean is stripped of animal plankton and saturated with carbon combustion and plastic residue.
Climate policy has treated carbon dioxide as the single lever for climate change.
Marine biodiversity, and the ocean surface microlayer (SML) it maintains, is an equally decisive control on the climate, and that pollution is degrading both.
Water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas (about 70% of all greenhouse-gas forcing), and its atmospheric concentration is governed not only by temperature but by the lipid-and-surfactant SML that phytoplankton produce across 71% of the planet. That layer concentrates lipophilic ‘forever’ chemicals, adsorbed onto microplastic and black-carbon soot, to levels far above the underlying water, where they are toxic to the plankton that sustain the ecosystem and life support systems for marine life.
We previously reported a preliminary survey of the equatorial Atlantic; in the report below we present its full analysis. An automated image pipeline measured every particle larger than 20 µm in 352 georeferenced surface samples from 8 sailing vessels, classifying and sizing 51,547 particles.
Across the equatorial Atlantic, zooplankton were absent from 93.8% of stations; black carbon was present at 89.8%, microplastic particles at 69.9% and microfibres at 22.4%, with phytoplankton at 81.8%. 99.2% of all particles were smaller than 200 µm.
These results, reproduced in crew counts and in a separate set of GPS-tagged images, are consistent with a surface ocean stripped of animal plankton and saturated with combustion and plastic residue. We set out the consequences for the SML, water-vapour feedback, cloud formation and ocean acidification and conclude that eliminating pollution must sit alongside carbon mitigation if climate disruption and ecosystem collapse are to be avoided.
This is an existential threat to humanity if not addressed.
new report data analysis and interactive map of marine pollution
https://lnkd.in/euUDYjvb
Our sailing vessel Copepod, a Hallberg Rassy 43 travelling at about 10 kn, nearly 20 km/hr, we were still able to take water samples with the GOES sampling device. We sold Copepod in 2023 and now operate a land-based research station/ecocentre, www.seahorsepoint.org
The equatorial Atlantic Ocean is stripped of animal plankton and saturated with carbon combustion and plastic residue.
July 1, 2026 · GOES foundation