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Where Does It Flow? Tracking the Movements of Marine Debris
Presented by Drs. Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner - May 7, 2014

Marine debris in the open ocean is much more than plastic pollution: it is a collection of all floating debris, organic and synthetic. Studying its movement throughout the worlds oceans allows scientists at the International Pacific Research Center to more accurately visualize how large-scale ocean systems function and this information can be used to create robust computer models. These models, in turn, act as predictors of debris fields, like the one created after the 2011 earthquake that struck Japan’s Pacific Coast. When used in conjunction with actual debris observations from everyday citizens along the West Coast of the US and Hawaii, Drs. Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner are able to better observe how debris fields can change over time.

Webinar Archive

You can watch a video of the webinar below. Dr. Maximenko and Dr. Hafner's joint, interactive concept map is listed below the video player if you wish to follow along with the presentation!

Concept Map

This webinar features a map created by Drs. Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner entitled, "Where Does It Flow? Tracking the Movements of Marine Debris". You can explore this map in the window below, or save it to your own CLIMB account by clicking on the light blue wrench in the upper left corner and selecting Copy Map to My Maps.

Resources

About the Presenter

Nikolai Maximenko 
Dr. Nikolai Maximenko
Sea Education Association
Dr. Maximenko is a Senior Researcher with a background in physical oceanography at the International Pacific Research Center, based at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and within the University of Hawaii. He was born in Crimea (then the Soviet Union) and obtained his PhD from the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Russia.

Jan Hafner 
Dr. Jan Hafner
Sea Education Association
Dr. Hafner is a Scientific Programmer with a background in atmospheric science, also at the International Pacific Research Center in Hawaii. Jan was born in Czechoslovakia and obtained his PhD from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

For many years, Nikolai and Jan have worked together on various projects having to do with ocean circulation. Since 2010, their focus has turned to the topic of marine debris and they are now studying it more closely as their research grows beyond "just modeling".