INPE Concludes Antarctic Module Installations

Hello reader!

It follows one communicates published on the day (10/21) in the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) noting that the INPE concludes Antarctic Module installations.

Duda Falcão

INPE Concludes Antarctic

Module Installations

Friday, October 21, 2011

The National Institute for Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais – INPE) has completed the installation of power systems and instrumentation in CRIOSFERA 1, Brazil's first stand-alone module for atmosphere collection into Antarctica. Over a month, technicians equipped the module that now goes to Porto Alegre (RS), Brazil, where it will be shipped to latitude 80°S by freighter (Union glacier). Then, the module will be pulled by tractor to the point 84°S 80°07'W, about 500 kilometers from the geographic South Pole. The entire module's infrastructure was developed, integrated and tested at INPE. In December, engineer Marcelo Sampaio and technician Heber Passos will accompany the module's installation and operation on the frozen continent.

Funded by CNPq/MCT (Brazilian Antarctic Program - Programa Antártico Brasileiro - Proantar), CRIOSFERA 1 will be the first one of its kind installed in the Antarctic interior to work 24 hours a day, without needing technicians monitoring operations (data will be sent via satellite), also without pollutants emissions. Equipped with solar panels and wind generators, Criosfera 1 is sustainable because does not use fossil fuel for its operation.

The module will collect meteorological data and perform measurements of atmosphere chemical composition in the region, such as carbon dioxide, and the sampling of atmospheric particulates from mineral, biogenic and anthropogenic. Also it will observe the rate of snow's deposition in real time.

During the first year of CRIOSFERA 1 operation, scientists from Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and from INPE will investigate climate consequences of the ozone layer reduction over the South Pole. Also will perform the "calibration of ice cores" and study atmospheric transport of air masses to the region, data necessary for better understanding of global desertification processes, the impact of fires and industry pollution.

The results obtained by the module will be added to the research conducted at the Brazilian Antarctic station Comandante Ferraz, located at latitude 62°S, on the edge of the continent. Along with other institutions in Brazil, INPE has been conducting research in the region for over 25 years. Their studies aim to know more about the atmosphere dynamics, the ozone layer, weather, global warming, greenhouse gases, ultraviolet radiation, the sun-atmosphere relation, the transport of pollution, oceanography and ocean-atmosphere interaction.

Source: WebSite of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)