Antarctica dodges the Virus but not the Pollution

Antarctica has managed for the moment, thanks to the strict security measures and protocols imposed on the scientific community, to avoid the virus responsible for the pandemic, but not the atmospheric pollution, mostly from fossil fuels and from other continents.

This has been confirmed by Spanish scientists, who have just closed the Gabriel de Castilla and Juan Carlos I bases and embarked on the way back home after one of the most difficult, atypical and demanding campaigns due to the pandemic, which began with the ship Oceanographic “Hespérides” stopped after detecting an outbreak on board and the death of First Sergeant of the Navy Francisco Rodríguez Sánchez, who was part of the crew.

With the “Hespérides” stopped, all logistical support to the Spanish bases has fallen on the oceanographic vessel “Sarmiento de Gamboa” during the almost two months that a research campaign marked by covid-19 and the protocols that the staff has Spanish scientist and military has complied to prevent the introduction of the virus in the most pristine continent.

Spanish researchers have deepened this year in the knowledge of the thermodynamic interaction between glaciers and the ocean, in the role that penguins play in certain biogeochemical cycles, in the evolution of some volatiles under the Decepción Island volcano or in the evaluation of the Antarctic air using novel laser techniques.

Researchers from the University of Zaragoza and the Complutense University of Madrid with funding from the Ministry of Science participate in the study of atmospheric aerosols in Antarctica to determine air quality and the origin – largely natural but also clearly human – of the particles that already pollute the air of the continent.

Researcher César Marina Montes has explained that atmospheric particles of natural origin (terrestrial or marine) predominate in Antarctica but has pointed out that they have found lead, copper or tin particles in concentrations higher than those found in the soil of the islands and that reveal a human origin.

Marina, from the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Zaragoza, has explained to EFE that they have used a novel technology (called “laser-induced plasma spectroscopy”) to assess air quality and characterize atmospheric particles and thus complete the research work carried out, with the help of the Army, since the 2016-2017 campaign.

Most of the particles of human origin come from fossil fuels, the scientist has detailed, but has stressed that these are “very low” concentrations at the moment, comparable to those produced in less populated rural areas “and for nothing comparable to the concentrations of our cities”.

It is still very difficult to estimate the negative effects that this pollution has on Antarctic ecosystems, but the researcher has observed that the continent acts “as a thermostat” of the Earth and that everything that happens there influences the rest of the planet and vice versa, and Studies have already shown that Antarctica has warmed, over the past thirty years, three times more than the rest of the Earth.

It has – he underlined – the purest air on the planet, due to the almost null human interaction and the isolation of the nearest continents thanks to the circumpolar winds; it is a territory “of peace and of investigation”; but some pollutants manage to enter its air, coming from nearby areas or from the increasing number of tourist cruises and the intense maritime traffic at Cape Horn.

The campaign that ends has been the most atypical and demanding in history – the Spanish Polar Committee had to reorganize it after the covid-19 outbreak in the Hespérides when it was already heading to the area – and the scientists and the military have had to comply strict protocols (PCR tests, hotel quarantines, “bubble” groups, etc.) to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from entering the continent.

Scientists and technical personnel in many countries have already begun to retreat before winter begins and extreme temperatures make it almost impossible to stay on the sixth continent, but in that slow return, researchers and the military are again realizing the mandatory controls before starting the trip back home.

The campaign has also served, he has narrated to EFE César Marina from one of those scales, to remind humanity “that we are very vulnerable; that conservation and respect for Nature is essential to avoid future pandemics and that the more respect we have towards this, we will have more health”.