If the arctic ice contains plastic particles...
And the particles are man made...
And man has only been making small plastic particles for roughly 100 years...
That would mean that the arctic ice was, at some point in the recent 100 years, ordinary sea water polluted with small plastic particles.
If this ice... was sea water in the recent past, then it must be superficial ice.
If superficial arctic ice is young enough to contain plastics, and is now melting, then this marks the return of sea water from as recent as 50-100 years ago...
If melting polar ice, polluted with plastics, is a new and disturbing event, then...
Does this mean that this is the first time polar ice of that age is melting?
If 50-100-year-old polar ice is only melting just now, for the first time, then, in terms of rising sea levels, does this mean that sea levels have, thus far, only risen to their state as they existed at the end of the 19th century?
Or, is it that the arctic polar ice cap completely melts every summer and refreezes every winter?
If so, then won't a similar amount of plastic be recaptured when the arctic polar ice cap refreezes? Or are we now fretting at the idea that the arctic polar ice cap will fail to refreeze?
And doesn't that mean that 2 years ago, and 10 years ago, the polar ice cap was capturing just as many plastic particles when it refroze?
And if this plastic-bound ice has also melted during the past few summers, didn't it redistibute its captured plastics back into the ocean?
If the arctic ice cap is (or was) trapping large quantities of man-made plastics, then the sea ice doesn't seem to be the real story here.
The real story seems to be the horrendous amount of plastics in the ocean. The arctic polar ice cap, on the other, hand seems to be an unfortunate additional detail.