Dr. Erik van Sebille, Professor of Oceanography & Public Engagement at Utrecht University (Netherlands), will give a seminar at MIO, on Monday 23 June 2025, from 13:00 to 14:00 in the OCEANOMED amphitheatre, on the following topic : Chasing water: The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris in the Mediterranean and European Seas.
On-site participation is encouraged to favour discussion. Possibility to follow online through this link.
Abstract
The world’s ocean currents can transport material like plastic over vast scales, from local to global. The most natural way to study these transport pathways and the connections between ocean basins is by using trajectories, computed by simulating virtual Lagrangian particles in fine-resolution ocean models. In this seminar, I will give an overview of some recent work with Lagrangian particle analysis. I will introduce our open-source oceanparcels.org framework and show how we use this framework to simulate the transport of micro- and macroplastic, in order to map the 3-dimensional distribution of plastic in the Mediterranean and European seas. I will show how we use these maps to compute ecological risk, by overlapping the maps with biodiversity hotspots. I will discuss how we develop new parameterizations for subgrid-scale transport processes of floating plastic items; and compare these parameterizations to field and lab measurements. And I will discuss how we infer the possible sources of plastic using a Bayesian framework.
Biography
Erik van Sebille is professor of oceanography and public engagement at Utrecht University. He 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 Prof. 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.