CIM will study the transport of pollutants of human origin in the Atlantic and Southern oceans

The teacher and researcher Cristina Sobrino
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Starting tomorrow and for the next 30 days, researchers from the Marine Research Centre of the University of Vigo (CIM) will participate in an expedition in the Atlantic Ocean to study and quantify the atmospheric inputs of emerging pollutants and organic matter from human activity in the Atlantic and Southern oceans, as well as the impact on the sea. The expedition, which travels aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa oceanographic vessel, is part of the Antom project, in which participate, apart from the UVigo, the Institute for Environmental Diagnosis and Water Studies (IDAEA-CSIC) and the Institute of General Organic Chemistry (IQOG- CSIC). The professor and researcher of the Biological Oceanography Group of the CIM, Cristina Sobrino explains “this project has the objective of quantifying the entry of atmospheric pollutants, mainly emerging organic pollutants, into the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, as well as their transformation and effect on the water column through biochemical processes”. The researcher, together with the predoutoral student Paulo Alcaraz and the CIM technician Antonio Fuentes, are part of the UVigo representation in this project. Due to the the pandemic, both Sobrino and the rest of the participants in the project had to spend a 10-day confinement before boarding in Vigo aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa.

“If the results of the research”, which will help to understand how synthetic chemical compounds and their effects are transported in the Antarctic ecosystem, “show that the contributions of anthropogenic organic matter are high and that they have an effect on phytoplankton and marine bacteria. That could have a great impact on the current paradigm of the marine carbon cycle and the anthropogenic disturbance of this cycle”, Jordi Dachs explains, researcher at IDAEGA-CSCIC and head of the campaign. This knowledge could modify the current models of this cycle, key to understanding the temperature regulation of Earth temperature and other climate issues, as well as allowing the search for tools to reduce the impact of human being on the planet, a matter of vital importance in the current context of global climate change.

Work aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa day by day

The Sarmiento de Gamboa will depart from the port of Vigo in the next few hours and will arrive at Punta Arenas (Chile) on January 15, 2021. Every day, the teams led by Sobrino, by doctors Jordi Dachs and María Vila-Costa (IDAEA-CSIC) and by Begoña Jiménez (IQOG-CSIC) will carry out air and water samples, both from the surface and depth, as well as of plankton, bacteria and other microorganisms. “The CIM will be in charge of studying the effect of organic pollutants on phytoplankton, as well as its role in the transformation of these pollutants in the water column,” Cristina Sobrino explains in relation with the specific work that the team of the Vigo academic institution will develop. The collected samples will be sent to Vigo and Barcelona for their treatment and analysis. While the researchers who participate in the expedition will be in contact with their respective centers, through a reduced satellite connection, which will allow them to provide information on the progress of the campaign aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa, in which numerous experiments will also be carried out on the effect of pollutants on the microbiomes.

Background of collaboration in the Malaspina project

Although this is the first time that they will carry out a polar project, UVigo’s collaboration with the IDAEA-CSIC and more specifically with its main researcher Jordi Dachs dates back to the Malaspina project in which the only recent Spanish circumnavigation carried out. “That implied the participation of many research groups from different centers and some of them maintained collaboration. This is the first time that we are going to carry out a polar project,” Sobrino explains.

Source: DUVI