by Daniel of Diodorus
An experiment conducted with volunteer “climatonauts” analyzes physical, psychological and social reactions. Interview with Margaux Romand-Monnier, scientific director of the Human Adaptation Institute
In one way or another, we will have to adapt to the rising temperatures and the turbulence they will bring to the atmosphere in the coming years. Adaptation is the key word. An adaptation not only physical, but also psychological and social. A new area of research that someone has already begun to explore, not only in laboratories, but directly in the field.
The project
The Human Adaptation Institute, founded by the French-Swiss researcher Christian Clot, is doing it through the Deep Climate project. Ten women and ten men aged between 25 and 52 left on 16 May to spend a few weeks in an earthly furnace, the Néfoud desert in Arabia, an expanse of rocks and sands, where the average daytime temperature it’s 40 degrees in the shade, and at night it never drops below 30 degrees. A situation that could also represent a not distant future in Europe, and to which the human organism finds it very difficult to get used to, not only from a physical point of view, but also psychological and relational.
The shipment
The expedition of these “climatonauts” to Arabia is the third, after a first expedition that ventured into the humid heat in the equatorial forest of Guayana and in the frost of the lands beyond the Finnish Arctic Circle.
Corriere Salute interviewed Margaux Romand-Monnier, scientific director of the Human Adaptation Institute. «Among the 10 areas of scientific research interest of the Deep Climate protocol, particular attention is paid to psychological adaptation, mainly studied through questionnaires to which participants answer on a daily or weekly basis, which explore emotional state, level of fatigue, methods of climate perception. This will enrich our understanding of adaptive processes and other factors under study, such as cognition and sensory processes. The data analysis of the first two expeditions has begun and we hope to be able to share the results soon».
Different impact
During the first days of the group’s stay in the Arabian desert, Margaux Romand-Monnier stayed with the climatonauts and was therefore already able to observe the initial psychological and behavioral reactions. «It must immediately be said that there is great inter-individual variability within the group once it is exposed to extreme climatic conditions: people do not all suffer the impact in the same way, and it is not yet possible to define precisely which factors can explain this variability. It will probably be the basic physical condition, the level of fatigue, the emotional state, the type of experiences already had, which can explain the variability already observed during the first days. Each of these variables helps determine what the level of adaptation will be throughout the 40-day exposure period.
Group support
«What I have been able to observe – continues Romand-Monnier – is that, when some of the climatonauts were greatly affected by the climate to which they were exposed, the role of the group was particularly important. There is a tendency to build friendships and solidarity, as well as a great willingness to collaborate already in the early days, when everyone has to find their place. Group support is crucial for the hardest-hit members. The sociometric data collected in each of the exhibitions held so far will allow us to draw up a real cartography of group dynamics in the course of adaptation to these climates, and to represent individual dynamics according to the impact of the climate on each person».
Protected from La Niña but now El Niño is scary
According to a recent update from the World Meteorological Organization, global temperatures will reach record levels in the next five years, both due to man-made greenhouse gases that trap heat and as a result of the emergence of the natural phenomenon called El Niño. Between 2023 and 2027, it expects, with almost a 70 per cent probability, an increase of more than one and a half degrees above pre-industrial levels for at least a year. And there’s a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years, and the five years combined, will be the warmest ever. The climatic situation has been able to benefit in the past three years from the influence of a natural phenomenon opposite to El Niño, called La Niña, which has an action of calming temperatures. But La Niña ended in March 2023, leaving the field free for its opposite, which will make its action felt especially starting from 2024.
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July 27, 2023 (change July 27, 2023 | 09:24)
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