Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Caption: Drifting ocean garbage, global simulation. This animation combines data from scientific buoys (white dots) and simulated particles (blue/green, representing garbage). The buoys and garbage move in the ocean currents and accumulate to form five known gyres in the world's oceans, also known as ocean garbage patches. The ocean buoy data is from the Global Drifter Database (1979 to 2013) maintained by NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. The simulation data is from a computational model of ocean currents called ECCO-2. For separate datasets, see clips K005/4103 and K005/4099. This simulation was published in 2015.

Release details: Model release not required. Property release not required.

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