Centro de Investigación GAIA Antártica

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02 de May del 2020

(Español) CIGA-UMAG se adjudica proyecto de energía renovable para el DOMO

The “Agencia de Sostenibilidad Energética (Agency of energy sustainability, Agencia SE) and the Ministerio de Energía, through the program “Comuna Energética”, made the call to the first application of projects to the “Comunidad Energética” program, being the Universidad de Magallanes the winner with it proposal “Paneles Solares fotovoltaicos en las inmediaciones de las instalaciones del Centro de Investigación GAIA–Antártica”, more known as the “domo”, located in the campus north of Punta Arenas.

Over a 300 of applications were presented from every region of the country. From these, 80 were preselected, which certified the technical feasibility of its projects to apply to the second stage of the grant. From this stage, 46 applicants presented. The evaluation committee decided to grant at the Universidad de Magallanes, which resulted as the best evaluated from the entire country.

This grant looks to promote the participation of the community in the climatic action, to contribute in the transition towards a sustained energy development and lower carbon emissions. The grant funds up to 5 millions of chilean pesos, to initiatives in sustained energy, local generation, renewable energy, sustainable mobility, reforestation, environmental protection and soils enhancement.

Regarding to this, the principal researcher of this project, Claudia Mac-lean indicates: “we are proud to have received this benefit, because we consider that is the collection of actions and initiatives like this one, which as a whole will allow the transformation towards a society more friendly, social and environmental, and also possibly to a carbon neutral planet in the next decades”.

More information about the grant in the following link https://www.agenciase.org/2020/04/21/23-proyectos-resultaron-ganadores-en-el-primer-concurso-comunidad-energetica/

02 de May del 2020

Researchers from UMAG came back from Antarctic after postpone the expedition for the pandemic

A group of students from pre-and postgrade from the Universidad de Magallanes, returned from Antarctic, from where arrived on board of the ship AP-41 Aquiles from the Chilean Army, after set sail the 13th of March from Punta Arenas. The travel was abruptly interrupted, due to the national alarm by the declaration of a pandemic of Coronavirus.

The five students that the 17^th of March arrived to Bahía Fildes, only reviewed two of the twelve sites that were planned for samples collection. The 18^th of March they were informed that the Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ECA 56) was going to be suspended as a preventive decision due the advance of COVID-19. The ship returned the 19^th to the Base Escudero from the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), where they stayed waiting for a flight to come back to Punta Arenas.

The PhD students Johanna Marambio, Juan Pablo Rodríguez and Zambra López and the undergraduate student Francisco Bahamonde traveled in company of the Doctors Martha Calderón (Universidad de Magallanes) and Danilo Bustamante (Universidad Nacional Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza), all of them part of the laboratory of Antarctic and Subantarctic Marine Ecosystems (LEMAS, in Spanish). The purpose of the expedition was to accomplish with the objectives of the project FONDECYT 3180539/1180433 e INACH RT 27 17, led by the Dr. Andrés Mansilla and the Dra. Martha Calderón. The three projects have as objective to study the impact of the climate change in the macroalgae that inhabit the Antarctic from Bahía Fildes until the south of Adelaida Island, crossing the polar circle.

The PhD student Juan Pablo Rodríguez believes that “due to the circumstances we hope to be prioritized in the next ECA 57, to accomplish with the proposed objectives of the research projects”.

02 de May del 2020

Climate change and peatlands: The scientific journal Science published a letter from researchers of UMAG

In December of 2019, a few days before to celebrate in Madrid, the Conference of United Nations about the Climate Change, COP25, the scientists from Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG) Jorge Hoyos Santillán and Armando Sepúlveda Jauregui, together with another three researchers from the country, signed and delivered a letter to the prestigious journal Science, entitled “Protecting Patagonian peatlands in Chile”, which was accepted and published in its volume 366 on Friday 06 of December.

According to a synthesis written in Spanish by the main author and postdoctoral researcher of the project NEXER–UMAG, Jorge Hoyos Santillán, the text approaches the topic of peatlands in Chile (which mostly are located in Magallanes), and the need in protecting them, both to help to stop the climate change and to contribute to the fulfillment of goals that Chile has committed, at global scale, regarding the carbon neutrality.

Until now the Chilean climatic strategies to capture carbon from the atmosphere, have been focused in the sustainable management and afforestation of 400.000 hectares, employing mainly industrial plantations of exotic trees (e. g., Pinus spp. Eucalyptus globulus)”, argue Hoyos, explaining that this method, “has been criticized by the scientific community, because the industrial plantations increase the incidence of forest fires, heighten the hydric stress, impact negatively in the biodiversity and cause social conflicts”.

Because of this, expose that “Chile counts with other ecosystems that act as carbon sinks: the peatlands from the Chilean Patagonia (TPC), that have an extension of 3.1 million of hectares and contain almost 4.800 million tones of carbon”. According to the scientist, the process of capture of carbon in the TPC started ≈ 18.000 years ago and, at present, contain 4.7 times more carbon that all the aerial biomass of the Chilean forests.

In conclusion, the message from the letter points that “to protect this resource in the Chilean Patagonia, could be an alternative to the immediate impact, contributing to reach the carbon neutrality in 2050”. And propose, immediately afterwards, that “this could be concreted by stopping considering the peatlands as a fossil resource or farming susceptible to exploitation, including explicitly its preservation as an integral component of the NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) to which Chile will commit”. He even claims, “The preservation of the TPC can be granted through the Law of Climate Change, recognizing the relevance of its role as mitigating agents of the global climate change”.

It should be noted that this letter elaborated and signed by scientists of UMAG, is the text number 24 published in Science since 1975 corresponding to people with registration or work in Chile, which means that, according to the statistics, every two years one of these missives are published in this recognized international scientific journal.