He Center for Environmental Technologies (CETAM) of this house of studies, prepare the activity to be carried out between on July 17 and 22 at the NUNATAK-1 Shelter-Laboratory, located in the Army’s Portillo Barracks, whose focus is air pollution and its relationship with the Andean cryosphere.
USM Communications.- Giving students and young researchers knowledge about monitoring and sampling techniques in order to investigate the behavior of air pollution and its relationship with the cryosphere of the Andes Mountains, is one of the main objectives of the Winter School organized by the Center for Environmental Technologies (CETAM) of the Federico Santa María Technical University.
The second version of this initiative will take place between July 17 and 22 at the NUNATAK-1 Shelter-Laboratory, located in the Portillo Army Barracks and will convene academics from the USM, the Catholic University of Temuco (UCT), Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), and institutions from Spain, Germany, Slovenia and the United States, who together with Army instructors will give theoretical and practical classes at 2,800 masl and with temperatures below zero focused on understanding the response of the Andean cryosphere to air pollution and climate change.
For Dr. Francisco Cereceda, director of the CETAM of the USM and tenured professor of the Department of Chemistry of the house of studies, one of the purposes of this school is “to provide undergraduate and postgraduate students with theoretical and practical knowledge about techniques of monitoring and sampling to study the behavior of air pollution and its relationship with the Andean cryosphere.
He also explained that “this year we have opened the activity to students and interested parties who are not participating in the Anillo Aconcagua project and we have had a very good call, but unfortunately places are limited.”
The Winter School: Monitoring Techniques in the Cryosphere, the only one of its kind on Cryospheric Sciences in the southern hemisphere, was born within the framework of the Aconcagua Ring Project, where the CETAM-USM together with the UCT and the USACH are studying the river basin. Aconcagua River and the Maipo River, carrying out continuous monitoring of environmental and atmospheric variables in order to understand how climate change is affecting these regions.
Water availability
For his part, the glaciologist and researcher associated with CETAM, Dr. Gonzalo Barcaza, delved into the importance of studying the phenomena that are occurring in the Central Andes, since “light-absorbing particles (dust, Black Carbon, among others) that accumulate in the mountain range are accelerating the melting of snow and ice as a negative feedback of climate change.
The theoretical classes will take place during the mornings and will be attended by leading international scientists such as Dr. Magín Lapuerta and Dr. Sofía González from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Spain; Dr. Andreas Dietz from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany and Martin Riegler, from the Head of Research and Development AEROSOL, Slovenia.
study cryosphere
It should be noted that the cryosphere corresponds to the parts of the earth’s surface where water is in a solid state, which basically corresponds to ice and snow, both in the sea, rivers, lakes, mountains and anywhere else. In the Aconcagua Ring Project, research is focused on the study of the Andes Mountains, both in the Portillo sector, in the Valparaíso Region (Aconcagua basin), as well as in the El Yeso reservoir, in the Metropolitan Region (Aconcagua basin). of Maipo).
In this way, if what is happening in these mountainous areas is understood, it will be possible to generate better water availability forecast models for an area of the country in which around 8 million inhabitants live, almost half of the country’s population. .
Undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in participating must send a message with their declaration and justification of intentions to Instagram @cetamusm and/or to the email [email protected], which will be selected by a committee according to their relevance and interest.
