Explaining Brazil #91: Antarctica, Brazil’s icy Amazon

Photo: NicoElNino/Shutterstock

Brazil is now ready to inaugurate its new, state-of-the-art facility in Antarctica, but research operations are in jeopardy—despite the brand-new base. The country’s top researcher in the field explains to us why the South Pole is as important for Brazil’s climate as the Amazon rainforest.

In the first episode of our podcast in 2020, we’re taking you on a trip to the South Pole.

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On this episode:

Jefferson Simões is a professor of Glaciology and Polar Geography at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. He is the head of the Brazilian National Institute for Cryospheric Sciences, a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and Vice President of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research 2016–2020.

Background reading:

Reporter Iara Lemos wrote about the inauguration of the Comandante Ferraz research base from Antarctica.
Read about Brazil’s synchrotron—the most advanced of the kind in the world—another major scientific landmark for Brazil.
As Brazil’s fiscal crisis worsens, research has ended up at the forefront of the government’s contingency plans
South American students and researchers taking to the streets against cuts, writes Natália Scalzaretto.

Explaining Brazil is made by:

Gustavo Ribeiro, editor in chief of The Brazilian Report. He has extensive experience covering Brazilian politics. His work has been featured across Brazilian and French media outlets, including Veja, Época, Folha de S.Paulo, Médiapart, and Radio France Internationale.
Euan Marshall, editing. is a journalist and translator who has lived in São Paulo, Brazil since 2011. Specializing in Brazilian soccer, politics and the connection between the two, his work has been published in The Telegraph, Al Jazeera, The Independent, among others.

Do you have a suggestion for our next Explaining Brazil podcast? Drop us a line at podcast@brazilian.report

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