January 10, 2013

Dear colleagues,

It is with great sadness that we inform that our friend and colleague, Henrique Andrade, has passed away yesterday, with the age of 52. Henrique is a great loss for the University of Lisbon and especially to the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, where he was Assistant Professor, and the Centre of Geographical Studies, where he was member of the board and researcher at the research group on climate and environmental changes.

Henrique’s academic career developed at the University of Lisbon. He graduated in Geography in 1990. His masters in Physical Geography was obtained in 1994, focusing on atmospheric pollutants in Lisbon and his PhD was obtained in 2004 on Human bioclimatology and air temperatures, a topic where he was a pioneer in Portugal. His recent research targeted at the societal impacts of climate in cities, including climate change: a) urban green areas and well-being, b) climate and health (mainly on the effects of heat and cold waves), c) climate change and tourism. He was supervising PhD students on these topics and currently was working on mortality and cold events in Central Portugal and also on the effects of lightning on the number of asthma cases in children, through a collaboration with the D. Estefânia Hospital. He was responsible by the mesoscale urban climate network of Lisbon. He has recently published in journals such as the International Journal of Biometeorology, Building and Environment, Landscape and Urban Planning, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, International Journal of Biometeorology and Finisterra. He was author or co-author of several papers in international books. Henrique was low profile but very active and continuously searched for new research lines and funding sources. He will be greatly missed by friends and colleagues. His research legacy is very significant and will be continued by colleagues and students at IGOT/CEG-UL.

Colleagues from teams CLIMA and ANTECC at CEG-UL

Como estudar nas regiões polares?
Vem tomar um café com geógrafos polares portugueses e conhecer as respostas

No âmbito da Semana da Ciência e da Tecnologia e das atividades organizadas pelo CEG, o ANTECC vai organizar um café com os geógrafos polares, onde podes vir saber mais acerca da ciência polar portuguesa e de como te envolveres no estudos nos pólos.
Contamos contigo!
Vai ser na Mapoteca do CEG, no edifício da Biblioteca da FLUL, ao lado da Torre do Tombo na Cidade Universitária. 17h no dia 21 de Novembro. O café será grátis...enquanto houver :)

Jesus García, PhD student from the University of Oviedo, Spain, which is doing a 3 month stage at ANTECC will make a presentation of his work about the Picos de Europa. 
12 June 2012 at noon, room 7 at IGOT building. See you there!

André Medeiros de Andrade will be presenting a talk (in Portuguese) about the research he is conducting in the framework of his PhD on applications of CosmoSkyMed and QuickBird imagery for mapping in Potter Peninsula, King George Island. André will be doing a 10 day stay at ANTECC with the support of a Brazilean mobility grant.

The public presentation of the Portuguese Antarctic Campaign 2011-12 will take place in the 11 June 2012 at Instituto Hidrográfico - Lisbon at 5PM. There will be an overview of the campaign and a presentation of results by project members, followed by a Cafe with scientists, where you can get to know better the participants in the Antarctic Campaign.

ANTECC participates through the coordination of PROPOLAR, as well as with the projects Holoantar, Permantar-2 and Snowchange.


More information at http://www.propolar.org/

Looking forward to see you there!

The Portuguese Polar Program and the last Antarctic Campaign appear in the headlines of the FCT Newsletter with an interview by José Xavier and Gonçalo Vieira.
Check the text (in Portuguese) at http://newsletter.fct.pt/h/n1/polar.

Marc Oliva and Gonçalo Vieira presented talks in 21 and 29 May 2012 at the Catalonian Geographical Society in Barcelona focusing at the research ANTECC is conducting in the polar regions:
- Permafrost y cambios globales: la contribución de los geógrafos en la Antártida Marítima by G. Vieira
- L'Antàrtida i l'Àrtic, dues realitats climàtiques contrastades by M. Oliva. 

Members of the AntECC research group organized a field trip which set off to the Serra da Estrela massif on May 26-27th, in the framework of the course “Quaternary Environments”, under the coordination of Marc Oliva, Miguel Geraldes and Alexandre Trindade. Up to 28 students participated in the excursion to the highest mountain range in Portugal mainland (1,993 m asl), where the glacial and periglacial features in the massif left by the last glaciation were discussed. Several in loco analysis were made, as well as hands-on experiments, so that the students were taught how to apply in the field several methods commonly used for palaeoenvironmental purposes, such as: 
· The use of the Schmidt hammer as a relative dating technique 
· The close relationship between geomorphologic units and vegetation spatial patterns designed in Natura 2000 Habitat mapping 
· The interpretation of sedimentological sequences within the geomorphological context. 

Gonçalo Vieira has been at the Department of Geography of the University of Sheffield, UK from 15 to 18 May 2012 in the framework of Santander Research Mobility Grant. The objective has been to discuss possible collaborations with ANTECC in the framework of polar and mountain research. The visit was extremely useful and several potential fields for collaboration have been identified, with a prospect for joint project proposals and development of staff and student exchange schemes. Gonçalo presented a seminar at the masters course on polar and alpine change on "Antarctic Peninsula permafrost, periglacial environments, and climate change" on the 17 May. The visit was organized by Darrel Swift. 

On the 15th of May, Alexandre Trindade presented a talk about “Climate Change and Permafrost in the Antarctic Peninsula”.  The invitation came from the Program Eco-Escolas of the Torres Novas district, a program of the European Blue Flag Association. This program encourages work and activities about environmental education in schools. This year themes are water, waste, energy, biological agriculture, climate change and forest.
The lecture had the participation of over 200 students of several ages, and focused on climate change, especially in the Antarctic Peninsula, permafrost research and on the Portuguese Antarctic campaigns. The lecture lasted about 30 minutes and was followed by a 20 minute debate.