TAI Bookshelf Podcast - Plastics in the Arctic with Max Kortmann and Sebastian Pohl

Max Kortmann (left) and Sebastian Pohl (right) on their way to the top of Austre Lovénbreen, a small glacier on the on the northwestern coast of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. Photo: Max Kortmann and Sebastian Pohl

It is 2022 and TAI Bookshelf Podcast is back with a fourth series! As always, co-hosts Liuba Timonina and Romain Chuffart chat with scholars and experts to make the Arctic easy and accessible to everyone. This year, the podcast team is joined by new and returning co-hosts Victoria Bergström and Saga Helgason. Mariel Kieval also gets onboard to help with producing the episodes behind the scenes. Tune in every month and join our in-depth conversations that take you beyond the headlines and right into the latest ideas, challenges, and experiences from the Arctic.

In this episode, Romain and Victoria have a conversation with Max Kortmann and Sebastian Pohl from the Department of Ecology at the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Polar Research Institute. The two of them talk about their scientific expedition to sample and analyze microplastic in the Arctic that took place from May to July 2021. Their project focused on terrestrial microplastic pollution and on understanding the localization, concentration, and composition of microplastic in Arctic waters as well as tracing where microplastic goes in other oceans. They collected samples in different locations (Jan Mayen and Greenland being less, Svalbard and Iceland more impacted) and in the Arctic Ocean.

Max and Sebastian also chatted about the TOPtoTOP Global Climate Expedition alongside which they traveled to the Arctic. Led by Dario Schwörer and his family, who have sailed around the globe by fair means (i.e. without fossil-fuel-power engines) since the beginning of the 2000s, ToptoTop is a swiss-based non-profit with a mission to educate younger generations about climate change. Together with Schwörer family, Max and Sebastian traveled aboard the 15m sailboat “Pachamama” from Tromsø to Svalbard, Jan Mayen, Greenland and finally down to Iceland.

Learn more about the TOPtoTOP Arctic Research Expedition 2021.

This episode was recorded in February 2022 and was made in collaboration with the Austrian Polar Research Institute.