Picture a 30 million-year-old air-conditioning system strong enough to cool the whole world. Capable of adjusting global temperatures, the Earth's southernmost continent, Antarctica, is focused in a new book launched by the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment on April 1, in Brasília. "Antárctica - Bem Comum da Humanidade" was compiled by the Brazilian Antarctic Program (Proantar) and offers simple explanations for many of the mysteries of the Antarctic continent - a true no-man's-land open to international research but protected since 1998 by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the "Madrid Protocol"), which calls it a "natural reserve devoted to peace and science".
The Antarctic continent is a 14-million-square-kilometre (the size of 16 brazils) piece of land, 98% covered in ice, where the Sun never sets and where temperatures have been known to plummet to -89 °C, under winds capable of blowing at 375 km/h.
The idea of the book is to share knowledge gathered over more than 50 years of research in Antarctica - half of them also carried out by Brazil in its King George Island station, situated 120 kilometers off the coast of the continent in the Southern Ocean.
The richness of the book's photographs, alone, are enough to justify it - but simple, objective texts also help bring Antarctica's problems to light, a year after the 2007/2008 International Polar Year. The pictures reveal some of the continent's richnesses: a profusion of land and sea animals and a history of archaelogical, climactic, and biological discoveries, amongst many other unique characteristics. On the other hand, the book explains why the continent is increasingly threatened by global warming and other environmental problems.
Redes Sociais