A multilevel dataset of microplastic abundance in the world’s upper ocean and the Laurentian Great Lakes

Abstract A total of 8218 pelagic microplastic samples from the world’s oceans were synthesized to create a dataset composed raw, calibrated, processed, and gridded data which are made available public. The raw abundance obtained by different research projects using surface net tows or continuous seawater intake. Fibrous microplastics removed calibrated dataset. Microplastic fluctuates due vertical mixing under oceanic conditions was standardized. An optimum interpolation method used data; in total, there 24.4 trillion pieces (8.2 × 10 4 ~ 57.8 tons) upper oceans.