CETAM carries out research on climate change in Antarctica

Dr. Francisco Cereceda, commented that thanks to the measurements it will be possible to know what is happening with Black Carbon, one of the pollutants that cause global warming.

USM Communications.- The director of the Center for Environmental Technologies (CETAM) of the Federico Santa María Technical University, Professor Dr. Francisco Cereceda, described the projections of the work carried out during the summer together with the Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ECA 59) as “extremely interesting and unprecedented”. .

Thanks to these measurements, it will be possible to know what is happening in terms of the concentration of Black Carbon (BC), one of the pollutants responsible for climate change, as well as other gases and aerosols in general. In the same way, measurements were made of the albedo (percentage of radiation that a surface reflects with respect to the radiation that falls on it) and of the radiative forcing in part of the south pole.

The foregoing is relevant, according to the academic, because “Antarctica is teleconnected with the rest of the world, so knowing what is happening in that place is transcendental to understand what is happening and will happen in the future in the climate system. world”.

Dr. Francisco Cereceda traveled to the Antarctic territory together with the glaciologist and researcher associated with CETAM, Dr. Gonzalo Barcaza, within the framework of the RT 43-21 project of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), one of the objectives of the journey being “to achieve a characterization of atmospheric aerosols, as well as the deposition of these aerosols in snow (BC and mineral dust), which is relatively new in Antarctica. There is no systematic monitoring of this type of contaminants and their effects in Antarctica, there are only some specific efforts in some bases and in the past”, said the director of the Center.

One of the reasons for the lack of studies in this area – explained Dr. Cereceda – is the difficulty and logistical complications of carrying out this type of monitoring, adding that the research in the eastern sector of the Antarctic Peninsula, “is truly unprecedented. and we are very expectant of what the results will be, since we will be able to compare it with those that we have obtained in the past from our same measurements, about 10 years ago”.

He added that, according to the information they have reviewed, “this is also the first time that BC has been measured in the atmosphere and in real time in this part of Antarctica; We ourselves 10 years ago -in our previous expedition- explored the western sector of the Peninsula and we did not have this measurement technology, so these results will undoubtedly be very attractive to the national and international scientific community”.

Activities

Regarding the activities they carried out during the trip, Dr. Gonzalo Barcaza indicated that “we collected snow samples at all the points we had planned. In three of them we took ice samples, on one occasion directly from a floating ice floe by means of a zodiac boat near the coast, something truly unprecedented. We did this because it was not possible to land on the coast due to the waves and, therefore, we had to change our initial plan and take ice samples instead of snow from this iceberg”.

In this regard, the director of CETAM said that an air quality and meteorology monitoring station was installed on the deck of the Betanzos icebreaker, the ship in which the expedition was carried out, and also when going ashore at the different monitoring sites to collect samples. of snow. This year’s transect was carried out in the eastern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, the most sensitive side affected by climate change, which has already experienced a temperature increase of close to +2°C”.

new expedition

In relation to the next steps to follow in the project, Dr. Francisco Cereceda explained that “next year we hope to carry out a scientific expedition on the south-west side of the Antarctic peninsula, the most studied side and the one with the most contamination, as has already been mentioned. Therefore, we will be able to compare the results of the ECA59 with those of the next ECA 60 -in 2024 and 2025- with our own results obtained in some of the same points that we will visit, such as the O’Higgins Base and the Yelcho Base, years ago. 10 years to determine and evaluate if, indeed, the presence of previously observed contaminants has increased or decreased over time”.