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Going to extremes

Czech scientists head for Antarctica to study global climate change

January 3rd, 2008 issue

Photos courtesy of Kamil Laska/Masaryk University

The 2008 mission follows up on last year's, where ecology, climatology and botany experts analyzed atmospheric warming. enlarge

The team will spend three months at the Johann Gregor Mendel Czech Antarctic Station. enlarge

Kamil Laska/Masaryk University

Olga Bohuslavová and Ondřej Marvánek take a break in an ice cave during last year's research. enlarge

By Kimberly Hiss

Staff Writer

While most of us greet the new year with champagne and a modest resolution, a group of Czech researchers is kicking off 2008 with a trip to the ends of the earth.

Fourteen scientists from Brno’s Masaryk University and the Czech Geological Survey, leave Jan. 3 for the Johann Gregor Mendel Czech Antarctic Station on James Ross Island in Antarctica. This second annual expedition will last through late March, and is part of a long-term study to research the effects of global warming in extreme climates. The trip is timed to coincide with the Antarctic summer, the few months of the year when conditions are suitable for living and research.

“Our aim,” says Masaryk University plant physiology professor Miloš Barták of his research, “is to predict physiological responses to the warming of vegetation in Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems.”

The team also plans to create the first geological map of James Ross Island and the surrounding areas.

Barták was a member of the 2007 expedition to the station, and is one of the four Masaryk University researchers (a group of ecology, climatology and botany experts) who will return this week. Their work takes place on the Antarctic Peninsula, where, says Barták, over the past 50 years, the effects of the warming atmosphere have been more apparent than on the inland continent.

It’s hard to ignore the irony of a team of researchers dedicating their professional lives to the study of global warming, while living under a president who denies the severity of the phenomenon (most recently, Václav Klaus criticized the December United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia, calling the proceedings proof that the planet is really living “in green chains”). But Masaryk University, and specifically its Faculty of Science, has a history of research activity in polar regions that stretches back to the 1980s.

In fact, Czechoslovakia was one of the earliest signers of the Antarctic Treaty, a document created in the 1960s to set standards for nations wanting to establish scientific research bases in Antarctica. When the country split in 1993, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia retained participation in the treaty, along with more than 43 other countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Japan. Czech scientists conducting research in Antarctica have historically done their work out of stations that other treaty countries had built at the pole.

In 2000, Masaryk University, in collaboration with the Education Ministry, undertook the construction of its own research station to serve as a home base for both the university and other Czech scientific institutions. Because the research involved the ecology of deglaciated areas, a site on the ice-free northern coast of James Ross Island was chosen.

The 60 million Kč ($3.3 million) construction project was completed in March 2006 and christened the Johann Gregor Mendel Czech Antarctic Station, named for the revered Czech climatologist and geneticist.

The facility includes living accommodations for 15 to 20 scientists, two laboratories, and is powered predominantly by wind and solar energy.

“The world can see that we are highly qualified,” Pavel Prošek, professor at the Faculty of Science, who oversaw the station’s construction, told The Prague Post shortly after the facility’s completion.

“We can show that Czech science is able to manage hard work.” Prošek, who is now 68, led the first expedition to the station in 2007, and will lead this year’s trip there as well.

Southern living

Work at the station is long-term and multidisciplinary, with the basic goal of better understanding the area’s geological evolution and, in particular, its response to global warming. Areas of research include geology, organic chemistry, climatology, botany and zoology.

One particular area of interest focuses on changes in “lower plants” as they adjust to climate change.

“We study lichen and mosses’ responses to the manipulated warming of the terrestrial ecosystem,” says Barták. In order to do so, researchers have constructed a series of open-top, plexi-glass chambers, so that they can compare temperature and humidity conditions inside and outside the enclosures. A similar approach is being used by American, Dutch and Japanese researchers.

“The experiment is designed as long-term,” says Barták’s colleague Olga Bohuslavová, who is in her third year of doctoral study at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science and was also a member of the 2007 expedition. “It should help us understand global climate change.”

After returning from last year’s expedition in March, Bohuslavová — who affectionately refers to the organisms she studies as “my lichens” — waited three months for her samples to be processed and shipped to the university. She has since been analyzing them, but needs further research from this year’s expedition to complete her findings.

Barták and Bohuslavová are quick to point out that life at the pole — where January daylight lasts nearly 24 hours and temperatures are an average –3 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit) — involves more than just research.

“During the last expedition, we celebrated several birthdays of crew members at the station,” Barták says. “That was a nice opportunity to sing together, make expeditional jokes and enjoy some relaxation time.” He adds that researchers live there in “perfect union” because the accommodations are new, and most of the scientists have had previous experience with polar expeditions.

“I can say living there is similar to family life,” Bohuslavová says. “We meet each other every morning in the bathroom, and have breakfast, lunch and dinner together. But, if someone wants to be alone for awhile, it is good that the rooms are designed for one or two people.” She points out that many older Antarctic stations usually have more crowded accommodations with rooms intended for four or even more scientists.

“When working for a long time in Antarctica,” she says, “everybody needs to relax sometimes.”

— Hela Balínová and Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Kimberly Hiss can be reached at khiss@praguepost.com

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