The Pin
June 03 2020, 10:03 am
Scientists from Colorado State University and the Australian Meteorological Agency identified a region of the Southern Ocean located off the coast of Antarctica as the place with the cleanest air on the planet, according to a study published Monday in PNAS.
The group of researchers, led by Colorado State University professor Sonia Kreidenweis, identified a region below 40 degrees south latitude where the air feeding the lower clouds of the Southern Ocean is free. of aerosol particles produced by anthropogenic activity.
During the investigation, the scientists took samples of the microorganisms present in the marine boundary layer, the lower part of the atmosphere that has direct contact with the ocean, which, after being genetically analyzed, turned out to be of marine origin, that is, they entered to the atmosphere directly from the ocean.
After determining the bacterial composition of the samples, the researchers were able to determine that aerosol particles produced by human activities, such as pollution or land emissions caused by land-use change, do not travel south in Antarctic air.
“We were able to use bacteria from the air over the Southern Ocean as a diagnostic tool to infer the key properties of the lower atmosphere,” said Thomas Hill, co-author of the study. According to him, the evidence obtained suggests that this region is “one of the few places on Earth that has been minimally affected by anthropogenic activities.”
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