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International Antarctic Coastal Circumnavigation Expedition (ICCE): View from the bow of the Russian icebreaker Akademik Tryoshnikov, of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) of St. Petersburg, en route to Antarctica, on 11/24/2024, one day after sailing from the port of Rio Grande – Photo: Anderson Astor and Marcelo Curia/ICCE
A Russian icebreaker with 57 scientists on board is due to arrive in Antarctica in the coming days to begin a 20,000-kilometer expedition around the icy continent, led by Brazil. The researchers aim to understand how Antarctic ice and biodiversity are reacting to the warming of the planet, and how this scenario could be altered in the future by the worsening of climate change that is already underway.
The International Antarctic Coastal Circumnavigation Expedition (ICCE) departed from the port of Rio Grande (RS) at dawn on Saturday, November 23, and is expected to return at the end of January. About half (27) of the researchers on board are from Brazil, including three representatives from USP. The other participating countries are Argentina, Chile, China, India, Peru and Russia.
The key point of the expedition is the proximity that the researchers plan to reach from the coast to inspect the edges of the ice sheet that covers the continent. “The intention is to get as close to the glaciers as possible,” glaciologist Jefferson Cardia Simões, a professor at the Polar and Climate Center (CPC) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), who is leading the expedition, told Jornal da USP.
The level of approach will depend on sea ice conditions, as part of the Southern Ocean — which surrounds Antarctica — remains frozen even during the summer. “This in itself will be a great challenge,” says Simões, who is Brazil’s representative on the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) of the International Science Council (ISC).
The vessel in charge of the mission is the icebreaker Akademik Tryoshnikov, of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) of St. Petersburg, Russia, with 133 meters in length, ten laboratories, two heliports, boats, winches and other research equipment specially designed for polar missions. Its reinforced hull has the capacity to cross ice floes (floating ice shelves) up to 1.5 meters thick.
The goal, according to Simões, is to inspect about 15 glaciers around the continent. In addition to the analyses made with the ship’s own instruments, the researchers will use helicopters to collect ice and snow samples from the continent. Visits will also be made to Russian and Chinese research stations along the way. The first stop will be at Novolazarevskaya Station, a Russian research base at 70° south latitude (see map below).
The real-time location of the ship can be viewed at: https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9548536. Until the close of this report, the expected date of arrival at the Russian base was December 6.
Scientists’ interest in the region is more than justified. Antarctica plays a key role in regulating the global climate, and so everything that happens there has implications for the rest of the planet. Unlike the Arctic, which is a floating ice cap, Antarctica is a continent of land, 13.6 million square kilometers (larger than Brazil, Argentina and Chile combined), covered by an ice sheet 2 kilometers thick, on average. The eventual melting of this polar cap, even partial, would have the potential to cause drastic changes in climate, oceanographic and ecological patterns of the planet.
Therefore, one of the main objectives of the expedition is to understand how Antarctica’s ice and biodiversity are responding to the warming of the planet, both on land and at sea. Scientists will map a number of physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Southern Ocean around the continent, including temperature, salinity, pH and biodiversity (number and diversity of species). “We want to have this data with a spatial distribution, which is much more interesting than isolated points,” explains Simões.
This mapping will serve as a baseline to assess the environmental health status of Antarctica and monitor the impacts that climate change will have on the continent over the coming decades.
“The Antarctic ice sheet is very stable, but it is on the periphery that we are seeing very rapid changes. The ocean will start to absorb less carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) soon, because it is increasingly acidic, and we are already seeing a series of changes in the distribution of species, for example" says Simões. “Things are happening cumulatively and increasingly. If the heating reaches 3°, I don’t know what will happen.”
The forecast of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the highest body of international climate science, is that, without a drastic and immediate reduction in global emissions of greenhouse gases, the average temperature of the Earth should rise up to 4° Celsius by 2100, with drastic consequences for life on the planet.
Microscopic Life
The USP researchers’ attention on the expedition will be focused mainly on the microorganisms of the Antarctic environment — which, although tiny, have a gigantic importance in the functioning of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Three young researchers (Renato Romano, Emanuele Kuhn and Newton de Magalhães Neto) will collect samples and data for three professors of the University: Vivian Pellizari and Amanda Bendia, from the Oceanographic Institute (IO); and Douglas Galante, from the Institute of Geosciences (IGc). Professor Camila Signori, from IO USP, also participates in collaboration with Professor Eduardo Secchi, from the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG).
In general, scientists want to better understand who are the organisms that make up the Antarctic microbiota, their functions in the ecosystem, and how they interact with the various environmental parameters of the region — for example, temperature, salinity and pH of the water —, which can be changed by climate change.
Much of this knowledge will be generated by analyzing genetic material extracted from water, air or snow samples from the Antarctic region. This material, known as “environmental DNA” (or eDNA), allows to characterize the microbial biodiversity (of bacteria, archaea and microalgae, for example) present in the environments in which the samples were collected. “I want to better understand this part of biogeography; how these organisms are dispersed around Antarctica and relate this to the physical and chemical factors of the environment,” explains Professor Vivian Pellizari. “From this point, the idea is to see how climate change and thawing are impacting this microbiota.”
Professor Amanda Bendia will investigate the possible air transport of marine microorganisms to the interior of the Antarctic continent through aerosols (airborne particles that can be transported by wind). Ten years ago, researchers detected (via eDNA) the presence of marine microorganisms in the snow around the Criosfera 1 module, a research station installed in the interior of the Antarctic continent. The discovery caused astonishment, since the nearest coastline is 800 kilometers away from the module. Bendia and other researchers then compared the snow microorganisms of Cryosphere 1 with the microorganisms present in the sea of the Antarctic Peninsula and saw that there were many species in common in the two environments.”It remains to be seen how they get there in the interior of the continent,” says Bendia.
In the search for an answer, scientists will install air filters on top of the Russian ship to sample the aerosols present in the atmosphere around Antarctica and see if there are any marine microorganisms floating around — who they are, in what quantity, how they are being transported, and whether they are alive or dead. “We still do not know very well how much live cells there are in this snow (from the interior of the continent) or in the air particles; if they are alive, if they are just pieces of cells or just DNA,” explains Bendia. Samples collected with the filters will help resolve this question. In addition to genetic sequencing, the researchers will investigate the samples visually under the microscope and try to grow some of the organisms found there in the laboratory.
The responses have potential ecological and climatic implications for the Antarctic environment, as some of these bioaerosols may act as ice nucleating particles, aiding in cloud formation. And it is possible that climate change increases the dispersion of these organisms in the atmosphere, due to the increase in the occurrence of cyclones and other extreme weather events.
Renato Romano, PhD student at the Oceanographic Institute of USP, prepares filters for air collection during the expedition – Photo: Emanuele Kuhn
Astrobiology
In addition to revealing details about Antarctica’s biodiversity and ecology, research derived from the expedition could provide clues about living conditions on other planets.
Professor Douglas Galante, from IGc-USP, will prospect for the presence of microbial mats (biofilms) formed by bacteria capable of producing minerals through a process called bioprecipitation — equivalent to what our cells do to produce our skeleton, and which mollusks use to produce their shells, for example.
“There are very thick microbial mats that bioprecipitate carbonates,” says Galante. If
these biofilms are found in Antarctica, the idea is to compare the carbonate produced by them with the carbonate that exists on the surface of Mars, to know if it is of biological origin or not — which would be an indication that microbial life once existed on the red planet. “We have been studying these minerals here on Earth to develop methodologies capable of separating what is biotic from what is not biotic; and Antarctica is a very interesting model for this,” explains Galante.
According to the professor, these microbial mats occur mainly in coastal, shallow water environments, and can be several centimeters thick. ” You can walk on them; and we imagine that this was the type of life prevalent here on Earth in the Archaean period (between 4 billion and 2.5 billion years ago),” says the researcher. “So, traveling to these places (like Antarctica) is traveling to the past, in a way.”
The first challenge will be to find these biofilms and make the collections, to then identify who are the microorganisms present there and what type of metabolism they are using to survive in the Antarctic environment. The biominerals, if any, will be analyzed using synchrotron light at the Sirius particle accelerator in Campinas.
The next step, as with the other projects, will be to monitor the impact of climate change on this biodiversity. As temperatures rise, it is possible that the melting of Antarctica’s coastal regions will create more environments conducive to the occurrence of these biofilms.
Most of the expedition (97%) is funded by the Swiss foundation Albedo Pour la Cryosphère, with support from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Fapergs). The 27 Brazilian researchers are linked to institutions participating in the National Institute of Cryosphere Science and Technology and research projects of the Brazilian Antarctic Program (Proantar). The participating institutions, in addition to UFRGS and USP, are: Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), University of Brasília (UnB), Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Federal Fluminense University (Uff), Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA) and Federal University of Viçosa (UFV).
For more information: Vivian Pellizari (vivianp@usp.br); Amanda Bendia (amandagb@usp.br); Douglas Galante (galante@usp.br); e Camila Signori (csignori@usp.br).
English version: Nexus Traduções
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A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.
A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.