SIMULATING THE DISPERSION OF MICROPLASTICS IN THE ATMOSPHERE TOWARDS A REMOTE SITE

The study of the dispersion of microplastics in the atmosphere represents a pioneering field of research, a very few works on this subject can be found in literature. In this work, the potential long-range dispersion of microplastics in the atmosphere is investigated using the Lagrangian stochastic particle model MILORD. The rationale is to apply MILORD model in the backward mode, in order to identify possible emission sources that may determine the microplastics pollution in sites or areas of interest. The sensitivity to the resolution of the meteorological input, to the diffusion parameters and the effect of the settling velocity values have been primarily investigated. A case study has been chosen for reference, concerning the observations of atmospheric microplastics deposition in a remote and pristine site in French Pyrenees, for which the long-range dispersion may play a main role. Preliminary results of simulations for different periods and different model configurations are presented and discussed.