JOURNAL

The Windows of Antarctica

At the edge of the world, Klimatico2 CASA KLIMA certified windows resist polar temperatures and 100 km/h winds, offering exceptional watertightness, allowing you to enjoy the comfort of the rooms and the light...when there is any. Yes, because here we are at the South Pole. Below you'll find the story of what this project meant to us: a journey, a discovery, and a beautiful workspace.

Klimatico2 at the Enea station in Antarctica

HISTORY

Well, I want to tell you about this adventure, starting from what you can see if you're here.

By here, I mean Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica , along the coast. If you're looking out this window, you must have traveled a long way, traversed the entire hemisphere to reach New Zealand, and then another eight hours on a plane to land on the ice.

Yes, you're in Antarctica, on a granite promontory. From your window, you see a vast world of ice, with a few rocky hills. And the light. The white that changes hue.

If you open the window, your face freezes in less than a minute because it's -25°C outside and the highest temperature of the day was +5°C. Sometimes, without warning, a katabatic wind blows, exceeding 100 km/h.

You're glad the window is tightly closed and you can enjoy the brightness of the landscape, the almost silent whiteness of this world at the edge of the world. You're protected, warm in your research laboratory. No howling wind, no drafts.

You're right at the MZS, ENEA's Mario Zucchelli station, in the main building of the base, where the living quarters and laboratories are located. You also feel like it's a special moment, because you installed this window yourself.
It was worth it.

Oops…we don't have window installers in Antarctica, but our instructions are precise, the assistance and training have been impeccable, and I've been here, on the other side of the world, to see how you did it.
Step by step. Voila.
And in these months of silence, cold, and research, we on the other side of the world also want to know what you do when you go out into all that 'ice' and 'white' that we call Antarctica.
I discovered that in the Antarctic environment—as in the case of Concordia Station—during the polar night, there are profound analogies with the space environment. Studies are being conducted on human psychophysical adaptation to hypoxia, the absence of natural light, and isolation.
This is a unique place. It's like a mother field. It's a geological map, a tale of biology and zoology from Big Ben onward.

When you told me that ice is an archive. Yes, exactly, ice is an archive of the Earth's environmental and climatic history. And that's where research takes place.

And here we are researching. We can trace the chemical and physical composition of the past atmosphere back to about 800 years ago.
The poles are, in fact, the "thermostats" that regulate the entire planet's climate. These studies have allowed us to detect CO2 concentrations over the last 200 years and fully understand the emergency of global warming.