MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Heightened alarm over Antarctic ecosystem

Rising temperatures, glacial melting, and the acidification of water due to high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are threatening the Antarctic, warned scientists at the Latin American and Chilean symposia on Antarctic studies, which concluded Sunday in Concepción.

Chilean scientists hope to take a leading role in all future research on the Antarctic, "one of the least understood regions of the world," said Chilean Antarctic Institute scientist Daniel Torres.

Temperatures in the Antarctic are rising six times faster than the global average. The recent appearance of black-necked swans, wild ducks, herons, pigeons, and thrushes ? none of them ever before seen in the Antarctic - is just one of many signs of drastic changes in the ecosystem.

By 2050 the rise in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which melts faster in cold water, will provoke an ecological disaster difficult to conceptualize, said José Retamales, director of the Chilean Arctic Institute (Inach). One consequence, he said, is that "invertebrate animals will have a hard time forming their shells, a problem that will be replicated in the South Pacific and Atlantic."

Currently, 700 million US dollars is spent each year on climate research. Sixty percent of the money comes from the United States, England, Australia, and Germany, but Inach plans to increase funding and raise Chile's profile in time for 2007, designated the international "Polar Year."

A Marine Life Census is one of the most important projects to emerge from the global cooperative effort planned for that year. Other projects will investigate vegetation that grows under ice and the possibility of setting up space observatories on Antarctica.

Every year close to 1,000 scientists make their way through Punta Arenas in Southern Chile, the "port of entry to scientists going to the continent," said Retamales.

This number is expected to grow in 2007.

By Renata Stepanov The Santiago Times - News about Chile