Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT: Understanding Climate Change in Drake Passage

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 1 2007 (IPS) - Infamous for its storms and shipwrecks, Drake Passage, which separates South America from Antarctica, will now be the focus of a multidisciplinary study by scientific researchers from nine countries, with the aim of assessing the impact of climate change on the ecosystem.

“We know what happens in the summer, but not in the winter, because of the difficulty in reaching the area. But we are going to find out now,” geologist Sergio Marenssi, director of the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA), told IPS. He is the scientific coordinator of the international research project, Drake Ecoseas.

The two-year project forms part of the International Polar Year (IPY), an internationally coordinated campaign of polar observations, research, and analysis organised by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which officially began Thursday and will run until Mar. 1, 2009.

The IPY campaign involves tens of thousands of scientists from 60 countries, who will carry out studies to gain a more in-depth knowledge of these parts of the planet that are particularly sensitive to global warming, and of the interaction between the North and South Poles and the rest of the planet, as well as the impact of the hole in the ozone layer on marine species.

Drake Ecoseas is one of the IPY projects. The IAA, whose experts are taking part in the programme, will also bring together researchers from Argentina’s National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP), the Austral Centre of Scientific Research (CADIC), the National Patagonic Centre (CENPAT), the Naval Hydrographic Service (SHN) and public universities.

The Argentine researchers will work in cooperation with oceanographers, biologists and other scientists from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, the United States and Uruguay.

“There is great interest on the part of countries in this area, because it is so rich in biodiversity and fishing resources,” said Marenssi.

Located in the 1,000-km wide Drake Passage is the island that inspired French novelist Jules Verne to write “The Lighthouse at the End of the World”.

The passage has an average depth of 3,400 metres, and the stormy seas and icy conditions have claimed hundreds of ships.

But it is also a very rich ecosystem. The Antarctic circumpolar current, considered a global climate regulator, picks up speed there, creating an environment characterised by a diversity of species capable of adapting to extreme cold and to conditions that are constantly changing due to the melting of the glaciers.

“This is a very ambitious project,” said Marenssi. The idea is to go in the wintertime because that is the period of gaps in the available information on species, food chains, and the impact of climate change and overfishing, he said. The research team will visit the area in the Argentine navy’s icebreaker “Almirante Irizar”.

Understanding to what extent the rise in global water temperatures is hurting species at the bottom of the food chain, which other species – some of them key to the commercial fishing industry – depend on, will be one of the aims of the multidisciplinary study to be carried out in two years of trips by the icebreaker and laboratory work.

The geologist said the project is related to a broader initiative – the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), which is already underway, involving a dozen different countries. It will also contribute to programmes like the ones conducted by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Besides this megaproject, Argentine researchers are involved in more than 30 others. One is studying permafrost and climate change, to compare the impact of the rise in global temperatures in the Antarctic and in northern Canada and Russia.

Monitoring stations are also being set up in Antarctica to observe the movement of glaciers, seismographic activity, and the earth tides.

In addition, the project will study what impact the thinning of the ozone layer has on plankton, and how this vast biomass of microorganisms acts as a natural carbon sink, contributing to curbing global warming.

“We are talking about a continent of 10 million square kilometres – in the summertime – of which we know very little,” said an enthusiastic Marenssi.