The Washington Post reports:

Microplastics lurk in nearly every corner of the globe. Scientists have found the tiny particles in rivers and lakes, in agricultural soil and in the oceans. They have infiltrated our food and water, cleaning products and cosmetics, even our own bodies.

But do they also play a role in hastening the warming of the planet?

It’s a question researchers inch closer toward answering in a new study published Monday that finds these minuscule pieces of plastic — particularly ones of various colors — are contributing to heating the atmosphere.

Drew Shindell, a Duke University earth science professor and co-author of the study in Nature Climate Change, said many questions remain about the precise impacts, but the new findings show that on the whole, microplastics in the atmosphere are likely absorbing more heat than they are reflecting.

“We can say with confidence that overall they are warming agents,” Shindell said in an interview. “To me, that’s the big advance.”

Microplastics are tiny particles — less than five millimeters in size, or smaller than a pencil eraser — that often originate from larger plastic waste. Nanoplastics are even smaller and can be a fraction of the width of a human hair. A large and growing body of research has analyzed their vast impact on wildlife, the environment and human health, but there has been less scrutiny about the role they might play in affecting the climate. [Continue reading…]