This video is part of what is perhaps the largest collaboration ever on YouTube.
Together with many, many other creators, we all decided to make videos about the world’s
oceans, seas and rivers in order to raise 30 Million Dollars to help clean the garbage
polluting their waters.
More on that later, but first, let’s zoom out a bit.
This map shows all parts of the ocean floor that have been mapped out.
And as you can see, it more shows just how much of the oceans we haven’t properly studied.
As for all the dark areas, there are no high quality maps of the ocean floor available.
Filling in these missing gaps is important for a bunch of different reasons, including
better understanding ocean waste.
But it has turned out to be an enormous challenge to do so.
If you throw a piece of plastic garbage into a river or sea at a certain place in the world,
is it possible to estimate where this piece will eventually end up?
We can't predict anything like that, but we can make an educated guess based on data collected
by buoys dropped into the sea.
Our piece of plastic is first heading north to the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean, before
it then floats through the Greenland Sea into the Atlantic.
Here, something strange happens.
Our piece of plastic seems to be circling in one area of ​​the ocean, almost as
if it is trapped.
And it's not alone.
This is the North Atlantic Garbage Patch.
where much of the oceans floating garbage is concentrated.
We know this because since 1979, scientists from the US Weather and Oceanography Authority
have been releasing trackable buoys into the oceans with which they can observe how ocean
currents move them.
Here you can see the starting positions of the buoys, which were launched into the sea
by ships and aircraft.
And here we see the migration patterns in action, with many of them drifting into the
North Atlantic Garbage Patch.
The data collected also coincides with computational simulations in which thousands of particles
were placed across the oceans and moved based on predicted surface flows.
We also see that there are other circular ocean currents which lead to these accumulations,
in addition to the North Atlantic, also in the South Atlantic.
As well as in the Indian Ocean, the South Pacific and the North Pacific which has the
largest one of these garbage patches.
The garbage patches are the result of the 5 large ocean gyres, which are circulating
ocean currents that spin waste into these specific areas.
One of the issues however with the term “Garbage Patch” is that it evokes the idea of this
thick layer that just covers part of the ocean like some trash island.
The reality is different and it is much more complicated to get an understanding of them.
Therefore, a large ocean research expedition on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was conducted.
17 participating vessels sailed the Pacific between Hawaii and mostly North America and
collected data on the amount of garbage using special nets.
In addition, one boat was used to explore the main area of ​​the garbage patch and
collect information on the exact amount and composition of the waste here.
Later, additional aerial imagery was taken by an airplane.
Looking at the data, the scientists came to the conclusion that 99.9% of the trash found,
is plastic.
The researchers assume that this patch alone contains 79k tonnes of floating plastic waste.
They also learned more about the composition of the patch, categorizing the waste into
4 groups, from microplastics with a size under 0.5 cm to megaplastics with a size of over
50 cm.
As far as the amount of weight is concerned, it turned out that the large parts also contribute
by far the most.
Of the 79k tons of plastic waste, more than half are megaplastics.
And this group is mostly made up of one specific type of waste: fishing nets.
While this study has contributed to a better understanding of the problem of marine pollution,
it also shows the enormous efforts necessary to even just gather data in the vastness of
the ocean.
And this study only looked at the garbage that is floating on the surface of the water.
Based on data from the North Sea and the waters off Australia, the UN Environment Program
estimated that of all the marine litter that ends up in the ocean, 15% is floating on the
water surface.
Another 15% can be found washed up on beaches and coastlines.
But the remaining bulk, 70% of all marine litter ultimately ends up on the seabed.
Only very little information is available about this garbage because of how inaccessible
the seabed is.
While we can model how floating particles move based on currents, identifying hotspots
like these garbage patches.
Doing the same thing for the ocean floor is much more complicated.
The effects that lead to floating garbage eventually starting to sink to the seafloor
must be taken into account, such as degredation or bio-fouling, which is the accummulation
of plants, algae and microorganisms on the surface of waste.
Also further knowledge on subsurface currents as well as the nature of the seabed is important
for modeling seafloor waste predictions.
For gathering data about this issue, there are different approaches.
One way is through the use of so-called bottom trawlers that collect waste.
The advantage is that this way you can identify both large and small pieces and even clean
up and remove them from the sea at the same time.
The big disadvantage, in turn, is that this is an enormously invasive approach, in which
fish are also collected, injured and are even killed.
In addition, this method is not suitable in regions where the sea floor is rocky.
However, it is precisely these regions that are of particular interest, as they could
be potential hotspots for garbage.
Another method of collecting data is through optical mapping.
For this purpose, videos or photo sequences of the sea floor are made, either by divers
in shallow waters, by a camera that is attached to a rope hanging from a boat or by underwater
vehicles.
These videos can then be used to create a textured 3D model of the sea floor with which
garbage can be identified.
This approach is less invasive, but is heavily dependent on the optical conditions of the
area, such as the clarity of water and availability of light.
It also just takes a lot of time to film large areas using this method.
This is why there is growing interest in a third way of gathering data about garbage
on the seafloor.
Sonar is a long-established technology in which the depth of the ocean can be measured
from a ship.
It works using echosounders located under the boat, which emit hundreds of narrow beams
in a fan-shaped aray, sending out acoustic pings.
This way the depth of water can be determined based on the time it takes for the ping to
bounce back from the seabed to the sounder.
The advantage is that this technology allows areas to be mapped much faster than using
the optical approach.
The disadvantage, in turn, is a comparatively low resolution which decreases with increasing
depth.
Because when the sea bed is deep, the distances between the points of the transmitted beams
increase.
Still, using this method, scientists were able to create models of the sea floor with
a resolution high enough to identify garbage laying on the ground.
This sonar image, for example, taken in Italy's Venice Lagoon, shows a pile of tires on the
seafloor.
And here you can see fragments of a rope, made visible by the sonar depth information.
There is even potential for using this method to identify and study large sinking objects
such as fishing nets.
And even if it will hardly be possible to map our entire oceans in such a high resolution,
the collection of depth data is generally helpful.
With enough data, a model of the sea floor can be created, with which computer simulations
of garbage movements can be improved.
But this is where the problem from the beginning comes in.
For most of the world’s oceans we don’t have that data.
If you ever looked at Google Earth, you might have noticed that it does show Bathymetry
maps for all the world's oceans.
And these maps are impressive as you can see the elevations and depressions, the mid-ocean
ridges, as well as the deepest naturally occurring places on the earth's surface.
But if you zoom in closer you will also see stripes that seem to cut through the ocean.
These lines are sections that actually have been measured using sonar technology.
Mainly along major shipping routes, as well by scientific expeditions.
The rest of the oceans are only mapped in an extremely low resolution, using a clever
but indirect method to do so.
Due to the different nature of the seabed, a slightly different gravitational pull acts
on the oceans.
This leads to subtle variations in the height of the sea level, so that it is higher over
underwater mountains and ridges than over plains and deep trenches.
These differences can be measured by satellites and that is how these global maps are made.
But just how hidden the exact nature of the seafloor remains despite these satellite measurements
becomes clear when you bring the resolution of this map into perspective.
State-of-the-art commercial satellites can map areas with a resolution of up to 0.3m.
This means that one pixel represents an area of ​​0.3m by 0.3m.
And using public resources you can find satellite imagery of all of the earth's land surface
with a spatial resolution of at least 30 meters.
We have also mapped other celestial bodies in high resolution.
Between 2006 and 2017, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took around 90,000 images, mapping
out 99% of the surface of Mars with a spatial resolution of 6m per pixel.
In comparison, the global seafloor maps of our oceans have a spatial resolution of 5
kilometers per pixel.
In order to create a more high resolution map the Seabed 2030 project was launched.
Their goal is to put together all seafloor data that was collected by various organizations
around the world in order to map the entire Seafloor by the year 2030 and make it available
to everyone.
In addition, there is a commitment to support explorations in places for which no data has
yet been collected in order to fill the missing gaps.
Minimum requirements have been set for the
resolution, whereby deeper parts of the ocean may have a slightly lower requirement due
to the fact that the spatial resolution with sonar mapping decreases with increased depth.
The project is making progress, and yet to date they have only mapped 20.6% of the seafloor.
As of now, their map still speaks more for what we don’t know than what we do know.
While the information collected here is useful for a variety of areas of research, from climate
and weather forecasts, tsunami wave prediction and even to studies on the modeling of garbage
in our oceans.
It is also important to be clear that a more precise understanding of the seafloor will
not only be used to protect the oceans but it can also be used for non sustainable activities.
As for example, this data is helpful for the extraction of resources in the oceans.
To get a grip on the marine litter problem it will be necessary to take a number of measures,
from reducing the use of single-use plastics to implementing modern waste management around
the world.
And to help immediately, TeamSeas was founded, the collaboration I spoke about at the beginning
of the video, in which a large number of creators have come together.
Which is why you may see quite a lot of videos about oceans pop up on YouTube in the near
future.
The goal to raise 30 million dollars to remove 30M pounds of plastic and trash from the oceans,
rivers and beaches.
So for every dollar donated 1 pound of trash comes out of the water.
To accomplish this, TeamSeas works with two foundations.
Half of the money will go to The Ocean Conservancy, which organizes massive beach cleanups around
the world and will go out to sea for removing existing trash.
The other half of the money goes to The Ocean Cleanup Project which will take millions of
pounds of trash from the rivers.
With their so-called interceptors, they collect river waste so that it doesn’t make it into
the ocean.
For just 5 dollars, these partners guarantee that a full 5 pounds of trash will be removed.
I think it’s an amazing opportunity to show that the internet is more than just retweets
and raising awareness, that something great can come out of this community.
So I decided, Neo is donating 1,000 Dollars to clean up 1,000 pounds of trash.
And if you want to donate something yourself, you should head to TeamSeas.org.
You will find a link in the description below.