Climate research by the sea and in it

It’s more than fitting that the tiny Greek island of Antikythera, off the west tip of Crete, will be host to the new atmospheric and geophysical research centre — the island has a connection to Greece’s ancient scientists.

Until now, this island has been best known for being where the  “Antikythera mechanism” was discovered on an ancient shipwreck. This sophisticated, geared device, more than 2 100 years old, was an analogue computer, capable of calculating the movement of the planets and stars as well as coming eclipses and the dates of the next Olympic Games.

But more than that, Antikythera has been selected as the location of a state-of-the-art atmospheric and geophysical research station because it satisfies a number of scientific criteria:

• its remote location and very few permanent residents mean that human intervention and air pollution are minimal
• it is at a key crossroads of air currents carrying desert dust from the Sahara, air pollution from major urban areas, and volcanic ash from Mount Etna
• its atmospheric conditions enable reliable and representative measurement of atmospheric aerosols and natural background levels of greenhouse gases.

The observatory will be sustainably built and will provide its own energy via solar panels to protect the environment, but also so as not to hamper the sensitivity of its equipment.

This research station also fills a void in the Mediterranean region, which despite being one of the areas most affected by climate change, has the least scientific infrastructure to produce data.

The new oceanographic research vessel for the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, built to be fuel efficient, will be capable of carrying out missions in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and potentially even in the Atlantic Ocean.

It will carry a remotely operated vehicle that can observe, measure, and sample at great depths, as well as state of the art multibeam echosounders that can provide valuable information on sea floor morphology, and numerous high-tech scientific instruments in support of cutting-edge shallow and deep-sea research.

Tanya Zervoudaki, a researcher with the HCMR, says the new boat will give the centre and other scientists critical tools for research.

The larger size of the vessel means it will be more stable for delicate lab processes like DNA extraction, Zervoudaki says. But just as important is its capacity to make new discoveries. “Right now we don’t know about the biodiversity of the deep-sea ecosystem,” she says. “Maybe we can find new species, or even enzymes or bacteria that could help human health or with adaptation for other organisms.”

Financing for scientific projects is scarce, especially in the period of austerity in Greece since the financial crisis.