How the Philippines contributes to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Authors

  • Goddess Marie S. Requioma ⋅ PH Department of Physics, University of San Carlos, Philippines
  • Stefano Salon ⋅ IT Section of Oceanography, National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics − OGS, Italy
  • Renante Violanda ⋅ PH Department of Physics, University of San Carlos, Philippines

Abstract

This study investigates the behavior of parcels advected by the horizontal surface currents of the ocean using the dataset from the European Copernicus Marine Service (CMS) with a 1/12° horizontal resolution on a longitude/latitude equirectangular projection. In this study, parcels are treated as prototypes of floating plastic debris. We used a Lagrangian Ocean Analysis toolbox the OceanParcels and ran a set of single-year and five-year simulations forced by the CMS hydrodynamic data, time stepped at a fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme. Using the toolbox, virtual particles were placed at 15°−15.3° North and 118.7°−119.0° East on the western and 15°−15.3° North and 121.5°−121.8° East on the eastern coast of the Philippines, in Santo Tomas River Delta and Dingalan Bay, respectively. The maximum distance traveled by the parcels was computed using the Euclidean method. Parcels released in the west traveled 104 km for both simulations. Parcels in the east traveled 103 km for a year and traveled 104 km for five years.

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Issue

Article ID

SPP-2023-3D-03

Section

Earth Systems Physics

Published

2023-06-25

How to Cite

[1]
GMS Requioma, S Salon, and R Violanda, How the Philippines contributes to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Proceedings of the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas 41, SPP-2023-3D-03 (2023). URL: https://proceedings.spp-online.org/article/view/SPP-2023-3D-03.