Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station to Be Completed in 2019

Established in 1984, the Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station (EACF) is located on Keller Peninsula, inside Admiralty Bay, King George Island, and was created to conduct studies on climate and the environment in general. Antarctica, explains the Navy, is the main thermal regulator of the Earth, modifying climate and living conditions across the planet, as it controls atmospheric and oceanic circulations. Furthermore, the proximity between the country and Antarctica means that natural phenomena occurring there influence Brazil.What happened?In February 2012, the station was partially destroyed by a fire—about 70% of the facilities were affected. Two lieutenants, Carlos Alberto Vieira Figueiredo and Roberto Lopes dos Santos, died trying to combat the fire. Due to the extreme cold, construction can only take place between November and March each year, and the site is expected to be ready by the summer of 2019. The Brazilian Navy is supervising the reconstruction, with a total cost of 99.6 million dollars, carried out by the company that won the bidding, the Chinese Corporation for Import and Export of Electronics. Scientific research in various fields is conducted at the station, such as observation of atmospheric phenomena, inventory of local fauna and flora, air quality monitoring, among other studies related to biology, meteorology, geophysics, and other fields. The high-level studies help to better understand the changes that the environment is currently undergoing and also advance the country in the scientific field. Once the construction is completed, the new station will have 4,500 square meters, 17 laboratories, and can accommodate up to 65 people. Additionally, it will be even more modern, with ultrafreezers so that researchers from the Brazilian Antarctic Program (Proantar) can store samples for their studies.Source: Government of Brazil