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Joint China-United States research team finds microplastic in atmosphere contributes to global warming
May 11, 2026
On May 4, joint research team from four educational institutions from China and four educational institutions in the United States published a paper in Nature, identifying microplastic suspended in the atmosphere as a previously underestimated contributor to global warming. Following material characterisation study in a lab and the results of an atmospheric numerical model, the researchers urged microplastic to be included into climate models more properly alongside previously known contributors such as carbon dioxide. This would replace the prevalent assumption that any microplastic in the atmosphere is colorless and reflects sunlight.
Hongbo Fu from Laboratory of Air Quality and Environmental Health, Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China (part of the C9 League) commented at a press conference, “The plastic problem is not just in our blue oceans, it is also in the invisible skies above us. Climate models need to be updated.”
The researchers used electron microscopy to characterise the optical properties of the microplastics across the full spectrum, for lab made microplastics of the kinds and varieties that was reported in literature as being airborne in atmosphere. Having produced the microplastics in a lab and characterised their properties, the researchers ran a computer model to predict their dispersion in the atmosphere and the resulting effect on climate.
According to the numerical model, airborne microplastics concentration is elevated at the north of the Pacific Ocean, with impact exceeding the impact of black carbon. In this region, this would place microplastics as the second most signficant contributor to greenhouse effect, after carbon dioxide. This location reportedly corresponded to the position of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Drew Shindell from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States (within the Research Triangle) called for additional measurements of the microplastics in the atmosphere to validate the numerical models.
The study found “diverse color” of microplastic contributed to the complexity of the assessment, as well as microplastic ageing. The researchers published their compute codes on Zenodo.
Previous studies assumed microplastic particles are colorless and reflect sunlight, according to the literature brief included in the study.
The researchers referred to a discovery of plastic in atmosphere around a decade ago in 2015, which promoted further research that it may have on the environment.
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