Climate change is causing temperatures in the Arctic to rise faster than in any other region of the world. This accelerated warming causes, among other effects, massive loss of ice masses, thawing of permafrost, intensification of the hydrological cycle and increased nutrient and organic carbon loads in surface waters. Arctic lakes are extremely sensitive to these changes, affecting microbial communities that inhabit them. These ecosystems are therefore excellent sentinels for studying ecological succession processes, which are directly related to productivity and greenhouse gas emissions. 

This "Andrés Barbosa" Polar Seminar was held at the National Museum of Natural Sciences of Madrid (CSIC) on 29 November 2024. There, I talked about Microbial diversity in Arctic lakes and showed the main results achieved in this research line (see Research).

Link to the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/live/oEpTd8dep8U

Seminar given at the Centre for Biogeochemistry in the Anthropocene (CBA) at the University of Oslo. The talk, titled as Microbial metabolism: the central force driving greenhouse gas emissions in lakes, explored how microbial metabolism regulates greenhouse gas emissions in lakes, highlighting its central role in carbon and nitrogen cycling across northern ecosystems. By connecting microbial-scale processes to ecosystem-level, the work directly contributes to a better understanding and predicting climate change feedbacks.

Link to the seminar (May 21, 2025): https://www.mn.uio.no/cba/english/news-and-events/events/cba-seminar-parra.html

Carlota Escutia (IACT-CSIC-UGR) and Nicolás Valiente (University of Oslo) explain the dynamics of Antarctic ice sheets and the role of Arctic lakes as indicators of warming, respectively. Global warming is dramatically accelerating the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice and snow. The changes that occur in the polar areas have repercussions throughout the planet, with direct consequences on climate dynamics, both in other latitudes and in global climate processes. 

"Café con Hielo" is a new webinar series organized by the CSIC Platform POLARCSIC and the Spanish Association of Young Polar Researchers (APECS Spain) to raise awareness of the changes occurring in polar regions and their environmental impacts.

Link to the webinar: https://youtu.be/yH611zOZY2o

A radio interview with the Network of Associations of Spanish Researchers and Scientists Abroad (Raicex). Eduardo Oliver Pérez, member of Raicex and researcher at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research, brings as a guest Nicolás Valiente Parra, a forestry engineer and chemist from La Mancha, who decides to go to Norway, where he works since 2019, as a researcher in the group of Aquatic Biology and Toxicology at the University of Oslo. We talked with them about the study of lakes, how humans are damaging the ecosystems of Spanish lagoons, the climate effect and our guest's research on the relationship between microbial communities and biogeochemical cycles in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems in polar areas.

Link to the interview in Radio Exterior de España.

Article published in Rudolphina, the research magazine of the University of Vienna, where we talked about our fieldwork campaign in Northwest Territories (Canada) in summer 2022. The article focuses on the importance of permafrost thaw in the global climate and implications for future.

Link to the article in Rudolphina.

Article published in Ecomandanga, a spanish blog about science communication (biodiversity related). The article focused on the main results obtained in my PhD dissertation on the biogeochemical cycles ocurring in hypersaline lakes.

Link to the article in Ecomandanga.