Hardy Portuguese undergraduates have been included in an international group of scientist setting off to carry out research in Antartica. The scientists leave on Thursday as part of the Portuguese Polar Programme which encompasses seven key research projects, mainly relating to global warming.
Director of the Portuguese Polar Programme (Propolar),Teresa Cabrita, said the Portuguese projects "are very renowned internationally because they focus on interesting areas of global warming and climate change."
Funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Propolar organises an annual aircraft journey to get researchers to the earth's poles.
This year, 122 scientists are going, 19 of them from Portugal, representing various institutions incuding the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Lisbon, the Centre for Marine and Environmental Sciences at the the University of Coimbra and the Centre for Marine Sciences at the Algarve’s university.
Some will be studying the effect of mercury on the physiological responses and genes of the communities that form the basis of marine food chains, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton. In Portugal, there are several ecosystems with mercury contamination and this work aims to understand how they are affected. Another project is to study the degradation of permafrost, soil and rock which is permanently frozen, which is being affected by global warming.
"This problem is very important in the Antarctic zone," said Cabrita, “because urban areas are built on top of permafrost which, when it melts, will have an impact on these structures. The study of the degradation of permafrost is a good indicator of global warming, and that is why we have several projects that focus on this theme to understand the extent to which the planet is actually heating and what is the effect on these layers of frozen soil.”
Teresa Cabrita said there are other projects dedicated to the biology, such as the one that studies the adaptation and immune response of fish species that are adapted to cold waters and which will be affected by global warming. These results can then be extrapolated to other animals: or another that investigates the dynamics of the tides.
“What happens in the polar regions influences the whole planet in terms of climate change, and Portugal is one of the countries most affected by these changes,” stressed Cabrita. For this reason, it is important to be aware of the need to protect these polar areas, understand what is going on to anticipate and prepare for any changes that may occur.
Propolar has a budget of €172,500, of which about €100,000 is used to pay for the flight to Antarctica, the organisation of a competition to choose the young scientist and grants towards their costs such as clothing and safety equipment, plus communications, insurance, and the preparation of reports and maps.
