Spread of SARS-CoV-2 through Latin America and the Caribbean region: A look from its economic conditions, climate and air pollution indicators.

We have evaluated the spread of SARS-CoV-2 through Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region by means of a correlation between climate and air pollution indicators, namely, average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, rainfall, average relative humidity, wind speed, and air pollution indicators PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 with the COVID-19 daily new cases and deaths. The study focuses in the following LAC cities: Mexico City (Mexico), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Bogotá (Colombia), Guayaquil (Ecuador), Manaus (Brazil), Lima (Perú), Santiago (Chile), São Paulo (Brazil) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). The results show that average temperature, minimum temperature, and air quality were significantly associated with the spread of COVID-19 in LAC. Additionally, humidity, wind speed and rainfall showed a significant relationship with daily cases, total cases and mortality for various cities. Income inequality and poverty levels were also considered as a variable for qualitative analysis. Our findings suggest that and income inequality and poverty levels in the cities analyzed were related to the spread of COVID-19 positive and negative, respectively. These results might help decision-makers to design future strategies to tackle the spread of COVID-19 in LAC and around the world.

Black carbon pollution in snow and its impact on albedo near the Chilean stations on the Antarctic peninsula: First results.

BC can be transported through the atmosphere from low and mid-latitudes to Antarctica, or it can be emitted in the Antarctica in situ. To establish a possible relationship between BC and the human activities in Antarctica, shallow snow samples were taken in four sites from Antarctic peninsula during summer periods (2014-2019): Chilean Base O'Higgins (BO), La Paloma Glacier (LP) (6 km away from BO); Chilean Base Yelcho (BY) and P4 (5 km away from BY). BC concentration in snow samples was determined by using a novel methodology recently developed, published and patented by the authors. The methodology consisted in a filter-based optical transmission method at a wavelength of 880 nm. Results showed that snow from BO presented the highest BC concentration (3395.7 µg kg-1), followed by BY (1309.2 µg kg-1), LP 2016 (745.9 µg kg-1), LP 2015 (233.6 µg kg-1) and finally P4 (179.4 µg kg-1). BC values observed in Antarctic snow were higher than others previously reported in the literature and showed the influence of anthropic activities in the study area, considering that the two highest values of BC concentration in snow were found at sites near the bases. To evaluate the impact of the BC concentrations found in the snow of the study area, snow albedo modeling was performed, using the on-line version of the "Snow, Ice, and Aerosol Radiative" (SNICAR) Model. Modeling outputs exposed that the measured variations in BC content caused large differences in the modeled albedo in the visible range of the spectra, which showed to be more sensitive at lower BC concentrations. These data could help to understand the role of BC in the actual scenario of climate change, in which Antarctica is presented as a very fragile environment that needs to be protected, starting with the management of the activities developed in-situ.