Friendly Floatees

Friendly floatees (English, German as friendly Treibteilchen ) are a batch of rubber ducks and other plastic animals that were famous after they went overboard in a storm and driven into the sea. The toys were washed over a long period of time at various coastal and gave help researchers information on ocean currents. Lost mass goods are only a part of a large amount of plastic waste in the oceans.

Origin

The sailing under the Greek flag cargo ship Tokyo Express came on 10 January 1992 on the way from Hong Kong to Tacoma (Washington, USA) in a heavy storm. In the North Pacific Ocean to the date line it lost it three containers. Approximately 29,000 plastic animals were washed into the sea: yellow ducks, green frogs, blue turtles and red beavers.

Importance for Oceanography

After eight months of the first toys were washed up in Alaska. This caught the attention of the ocean researcher Curtis Ebbesmeyer. After his investigation reached many plastic animals Australia and Indonesia and some Chile. Many ducks followed the annular flow of the Pacific, which requires two to three years for one revolution. Finally, in 1995, it was found that toy animals from the Bering Sea drifted through the Bering Strait into the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean.

Finally, researchers began in the center of Oceanography in Southampton, including the ocean current researcher Simon Boxall, to deal with the plastic animals. This crossed the east coast of Greenland. 2000 and 2003, there were findings in the U.S. states of Maine and Massachusetts. In the Hebrides, a bleached frog was found in 2003. In August 2007, the Englishwoman Penny Harris reported the discovery of a duck on a beach in Devon, about 27,000 km from the origin. From July to December 2003 were from the U.S. manufacturer First Years Inc., whose name is on the animals, awarded $ 100 reward.

Even climate scientists such as Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are interested in the trails of floatees. By the Greenland ice melt due to climate change freshwater enters the Labrador Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Greenland Sea, where the (lighter) Freshwater not so easily falls, thus slowing the ocean currents.

On the surface, floating flotsam, however, is affected by the wind as can be in scientific drifting buoys eliminated by low-lying in the water attack surfaces of the wind.

Reception in the Art

The Dutch artist Marga Houtman inspired the fate of floatees to the two -meter Duck sculpture " Mother Duck ", is to wait for the arrival of their little cousins ​​in England.

In addition, both children's books have been published that deal with the events, as well as the play of children, " Squeak, the duck " by Anne -Kathrin Klatt, premiered at the State Theatre Tübingen on 1 December 2007.