In 2011, a group of scientists began talks to promote the greatest expedition of the Arctic history that analyzes climate change.
In September 2019, despite the posterior threat of the Covid, more than 300 experts from all over the world completed 390 days in a vessel in the middle of the ice.
In 2030, approximately, the definitive conclusions will arrive.
That is the time line of two decades in which the Mosaic expedition moves, the great polar incursion.
“It has been a long expedition, but there will be a before and after the research of global warm-ups, especially in the arctic polar areas, which heat up twice as the rest of the world, about four degrees.”
Manuel Dall’osto, Researcher of the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), spent three months – among July and October 2020- in the interior of the Polarstern icebreaker along with another 50 scientists and 20 crew members.
This Italian is therefore one of the protagonists of the Documentary Series Expedition to the Arctic: a year on the ice, from which Odyssey Thursday premieres the second chapter, which follows the 13 months between the ice in search of conclusions about climate change
.
“The only option to do this is with international cooperation and changing every two or three months all. Once there there is no land so the only possibility is to take a boat, catch it on the ice and take samples in the middle of the ocean during a
anus”.
Just about that, despite the difficulty, some scientists have been dedicated to which the Covid was a step away from leaving without work, forced 15 days of quarantine before entering the boat and even caught some several months
.
“The people who had to go back at the end of February [2020] almost returned at the beginning of June, that is, they had left their family for two months and came back after six in pandemic, but this is a historical commitment,” details
Dall’osto.
Even the support boats had to change through the pandemic because the Chinese and Koreans could not leave and had to be replaced by Russian icebreaker.
But there was also good news: “While all were confined, we were all negative of Covid on a boat hugging us as if nothing had happened.”
A team of about 70 people between researchers and crew coexisting in the same place for months and going down to ice to take the samples.
A situation that required a physical and mostly mental work.
“Physical is needed a minimum, we are not astronauts, but psychological preparation is much harder because you have to decide whether to go or not in a world of pandemic, be confined even if the boat is large surrounded by ice and always see it
People, “explains the CSIC researcher
All for gathered “the biggest sign of history” during the day and night to develop some studies that, according to their accounts, will take a decade to “digest, analyze, model and publish all the data”.
But Dall’ost already exposes some conclusion: freshwater lakes that are formed on the surface of the Arctic ocean once the snowfall is melted in spring and summer.
“This is important because this layer of fresh water blocks all the flows of energy and matter between the ocean and the atmosphere and the fresh water melts to zero degrees, that is undone with anything in the summer,” he says.
And, what does this suppose?
“Well, the Arctic is going crazy and we have a problem, there are many outurbings of cold air and hot air and the hot pushes the cold, an arctic air that goes to the United States or northern Europe with temperatures of -20 or
-30 ”
Basically the cold waves.
That in winter season.
In summer, according to Dall’Otto, extreme heat, extreme fires and storms.
Just what happened this summer in Spain and several countries of the West.
“The problem of climate warming is that we have said during the year that it was going to be a disaster but that will be in the future, now it does not look like much but if you start talking with peasants or farmers, they will explain how difficult it is to get
Work with this. Imagine you’re doing wine and a frost comes in April, because everything is lost, “he details.
That will also take, according to this expert, that “the weather slowly gets warmed up”, there are “brutal heat waves next to extreme storms”, “some months of February or March hotter than June” and even economic consequences.
“For example, the peach will cost you nine euros the kilo. Is it serious? It depends on the person, but this will be seen in the short term.”
These issues will be those that will address as of October 31, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP26 in Glasgow as well as options to stop this trend.
Is there still time for it?
“It can be done only with the legislation and that is in the hands of those who are going to vote. And it’s not the fault of politicians but ours because we have to also have more civic and green sense: in winter we can not be in short sleeve at home
, you have to lower the heating; we have to take some means of public transport, and when you want in winter to eat a peach, you eat an apple and wait for summer without having to import fruit or vegetables, “says Dall’osto, which
Trust the new generations because they show “greater sensitivity that comes from schools and documentaries.”
And his criticisms also point to his sector: “Scientists have not been able to explain in a didactic manner that climate warming is a fact. We do not have any debate, we know that it is a fact but we have to activate everyone.”
For this, the conclusions of the Mosaic expedition will be.
