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At the Gates of the Polar Year |
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By Marcela Valente*
The
Argentine city of Ushuaia is preparing to welcome hundreds of scientists
who will study the South Pole beginning in March 2007.
USHUAIA, Oct 9 (Tierramérica) - On the eve
of the International Polar Year, a global scientific meet has been
convened to raise awareness about the poles in the southern Argentine
province of Tierra del Fuego. The capital, Ushuaia, is getting ready
to serve as the main gateway to Antarctica.
Since Feb. 28, a virtual clock in Ushuaia has been marking the
countdown to the International Polar Year -- really a two-year period
beginning Mar. 1, 2007 -- an effort to bring the forgotten polar
regions to center stage.
In this coastal city, the Andes Mountains seem to fall into the
sea, shrinking into small islands until they disappear beneath the
Atlantic Ocean.
"Ushuaia's slogan, 'the end of the world', is good for tourism,
but in truth we are part of the circumpolar community and the main
gateway to Antarctica," said Daniel Leguizamón, executive
secretary of the organizing committee for International Polar Year
in Tierra del Fuego, financed exclusively by the provincial government.
"For a population of 54,000 residents -- migrants from the
rest of the country -- it is difficult to think that there is anything
further south, but we are 3,000 kilometers from Buenos Aires, and
Antarctica is just 1,000 kilometers away," he said in a Tierramérica
interview.
"Ninety-two percent of the world's tourists who go to Antarctica
leave from here," he said. The tour guides aboard the cruise
ships that make the trip to the icy continent have received training
to disseminate information about the importance of the Polar Year.
The commission Leguizamón heads is made up of government
officials, business leaders, scientists, environmentalists, teachers
and tour operators. They have been working for months to promote
the Polar Year events.
International Polar Year is a global campaign of research and observation
at the North and South Poles organized by the International Council
for Science and the World Meteorological Organization. There are
some 10,000 researchers from 50 countries involved, including from
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, New Zealand and Uruguay.
The aim is to determine the current environmental state of the
polar regions, measure changes in these areas that are sensitive
to global warming, improve the scientific observatories, raise awareness
about the interaction of the poles and the rest of the planet, and
investigate sustainable traditional processes in circumpolar societies.
The organizers hope to multiply knowledge about these regions and
raise public and decision-makers' awareness about how important
their ecosystems are for the life of the entire planet.
"We hope to expand what we know with new and original projects,
and leave as a legacy the new observation bases," Sergio Santillana,
science coordinator at the Argentine Antarctic Institute, told Tierramérica.
According to the Institute, Argentina is the Latin American country
with most projects presented to the international commission and
the most projects accepted.
One of the projects, to be carried out in cooperation with the
United States, is to monitor an ice floe in the Larsen ice shelf.
A camera and a weather station were installed, and will be lost
as the floe breaks away and melts as it floats north.
"That simulation will allow us to create models of what could
happen in Antarctica if the global temperature keeps rising,"
Santillana added. "Argentina is the closest country to the
[southern] polar region and it is here where the first consequences
of climate change are felt."
The expert said the changes will not necessarily be disastrous,
but he emphasized that the world will have to adapt.
"In the North Pole, with a complete melt predicted for within
50 years, new trade routes could emerge. In the South, the currents
will change, and will be less salty with the melted ice, and that
will bring changes to the food chain," he said.
The local scientists with CADIC, the southern science research
center, and the Antarctic Institute are conducting several studies
in Antarctica and are involved in at least 30 Polar Year programs,
most in cooperation with other countries.
In addition to the projects Santillana mentioned, there will be
monitoring of the ozone layer, censuses to measure the impact of
rising temperatures on marine wildlife, and studies of whether ice
floes serve to capture carbon from the atmosphere.
This Polar Year is the fourth since the late 19th century. The
first was between 1882 and 1883. The world had to wait until 1932-1933
for the second. The third, in 1957-1958, was known as the International
Geophysical Year and gave rise to the drafting of the 1959 Antarctic
Treaty, which halted claims of sovereignty over the continent and
committed all nations to its preservation.
"We don't know what consequences this new Polar Year might
have, but undoubtedly there will be some," said Santillana,
venturing the possibility that the treaty, to which Argentina is
party, could be revised by the signatory nations.
Ushuaia hopes to serve as the antechamber of the campaigns, which
for now tend to be concentrated in the Chilean port of Punta Arenas,
even though it is farther from Antarctica.
"We want to be a nexus for scientists from around the world,"
said Leguizamón. That means facilitating logistics for the
researchers: airport, seaports, storage, icebreaker ships, fuel,
snow equipment, tools, cold-weather apparel and food supplies.
"The Polar Year needs a point of support in Ushuaia, and we
want to be part of it. It is an endeavor that reinforces our identity
as a polar community," said Leguizamón.
* Marcela Valente is an IPS correspondent. |
