Raindrops hit water surfaces covered in floating microplastics. The impact launches particles into the atmosphere via Worthington jets — the upward column of water that rebounds after a drop strikes a surface. When the raft is superhydrophobic, the jet fragments into “liquid marbles”: tiny water droplets armored with microplastic particles, light enough to be carried by wind.

The splash threshold depends on the particles, not just the drop. Deeply embedded particles stabilize the spreading liquid sheet, suppressing splashing. Loosely attached ones trigger fingering instabilities — the sheet breaks into tendrils that eject particles. The surface chemistry (wettability) controls whether particles fly.

But despite these qualitative differences, the splash thresholds and jet heights all collapse onto a single scaling law — geometric, inertial, and capillary forces combine in a universal way regardless of particle type. The diversity of behaviors (tubes, cups, marbles, sheets) emerges from the same physics applied to different surface chemistries.

The environmental implication: every raindrop that hits a polluted water surface is a potential particle launcher. The ocean-atmosphere transfer of microplastics isn’t just about wind picking up dry particles from beaches. It’s about rain actively ejecting wet particles from the water surface into the air. The rain that falls to clean the air also lifts from the sea the things the air carries.