Microplastics and Climate Change: Interactions, Environmental Fate, Ecological Impacts, and Future Research Directions

Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) and climate change are increasingly recognized as interconnected environmental stressors with the potential to amplify risks across terrestrial, freshwater, marine, and atmospheric systems. This review examines the interactions between microplastics and climate change, with particular emphasis on their environmental fate, transport, ecological impacts, and implications for future environmental management. The review synthesizes current evidence on how climate-driven changes in temperature, precipitation, extreme weather events, ocean circulation, sea-level rise, and environmental chemistry influence the generation, mobilization, transport, degradation, and accumulation of MPs. Conversely, the study considers how microplastics may contribute to climate-related processes through interactions with greenhouse-gas dynamics, carbon cycling, microbial communities, and the functioning of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Evidence indicates that climate change can alter the persistence and distribution of MPs, increase their redistribution through floods, storms, droughts, and runoff, and modify their interactions with pollutants and organisms. Microplastics can also affect ecological processes by influencing feeding, growth, reproduction, physiological stress, microbial communities, and food-web interactions. The combined effects of MPs and climate-related stressors may therefore produce additive, synergistic, or context-dependent ecological consequences that are not adequately captured when the two problems are studied independently. Despite substantial advances, important knowledge gaps remain concerning long-term environmental feedbacks, fragmentation and degradation pathways, atmospheric transport, interactions with climate extremes, and impacts under realistic multiple-stressor conditions. Future research should prioritize standardized monitoring methods, long-term and geographically representative datasets, mechanistic studies, climate–microplastic modelling, and integrated risk-assessment frameworks. Addressing the interconnected nature of microplastic pollution and climate change is essential for developing effective mitigation, adaptation, and ecosystem-protection strategies within a changing global environment.