Tackling the climate crisis from caves, forests and the cosmos

1. Mario Bielsa: the valuable information hidden in the millennia-old ice of the Pyrenees
2. Natural archives of the past
3. The challenge of fieldwork and the boost from the fellowship
4. David Izquierdo: from supermassive black holes to climate prediction
5. Simulation of virtual universes
6. Terrestrial application and the return to Spain
7. David Chaparro: environmental remote sensing to probe the "thirst" of forests
8. Detecting drought before it is visible
9. The MOIST project and the Prades mountains
10. A global commitment to research excellence

Understanding its true scope and formulating effective responses requires an unprecedented volume of scientific knowledge. From disciplines as diverse as palaeoclimatology, astrophysics, and environmental remote sensing, three young scientists — Mario Bielsa, David Izquierdo, and David Chaparro — are expanding the frontiers of knowledge and providing solutions to tackle current challenges. All of them conduct their research thanks to the boost provided by doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships from the ”la Caixa” Foundation.

Much like the vast majority of citizens who identify climate change as a grave problem — according to the latest data from the European Commission —, these three researchers look at the environment with a transformative vocation: Mario Bielsa prefers the heights and depths of the Pyrenees; David Izquierdo explores the mysteries of galaxies and black holes; and David Chaparro investigates how satellites can unveil the invisible within forest ecosystems.

Mario Bielsa: the valuable information hidden in the millennia-old ice of the Pyrenees

Originally from Castejón de Sos (Huesca) and aged 26, geologist Mario Bielsa completed his master's degree in Environmental Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His bond with nature runs deep: the son of a mountain guide in the Benasque valley, he learned to read the landscape from childhood.

Although his native region holds the largest glaciers in the Pyrenees, Bielsa became fascinated by ice caves situated at over 3,000 metres in altitude, specifically in the Monte Perdido massif. His research uses the ice deposits housed in these underground cavities to reconstruct the historical evolution of permafrost — the permanently frozen soil layer.

Natural archives of the past

The ice in these caverns functions as a natural archive comparable to tree rings or lake sediments:

• Biological remains: They contain pollen, small flowers, and leaves in an excellent state of preservation that allow the genetic evolution of vegetation to be studied.
• Millennia-old fauna: They preserve insects trapped thousands of years ago.
• Atmospheric composition: Air bubbles trapped in the ice reveal key data on climatic history.

However, this frozen heritage, boasting over 10,000 years of antiquity, is vanishing at a dizzying pace. By using laser distance meters, his team has quantified ice retreat of several centimetres or even metres per year, a phenomenon especially visible over the past four years.

Bielsa warns that the Pyrenees have not recorded such intense warming in the past 4,000 years, not even since the arrival of the first farmers and herders.

The challenge of fieldwork and the boost from the fellowship

Sampling tasks demand strenuous physical expeditions: they extract ice blocks using hand-crafted augers and carry them on their backs, running to the Góriz refuge (at 2,200 metres altitude) or preserving them inside the caves themselves.

For Bielsa, the doctoral fellowship from the ”la Caixa” Foundation has proved decisive: it has granted him proprietary funding and the freedom to build a multidisciplinary team integrating microbiologists, hydrologists, chemists, and palaeogenetics specialists.

David Izquierdo: from supermassive black holes to climate prediction

At 32 years of age, Teruel-born physicist David Izquierdo discovered his passion for stars at age 9 thanks to a book on the solar system. After studying Physics at the University of Zaragoza, completing a master's in Astrophysics in Madrid, and earning his doctorate at the Centre for Studies in Physics of the Cosmos of Aragon (CEFCA), he continued his work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca in Italy. He currently works at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) in Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona).

Simulation of virtual universes

His theoretical subject of study is supermassive black holes — those whose mass equals millions or tens of billions of suns — and their co-evolution with galaxies.

Through semi-analytical models and computational tools such as the international L-Galaxies project, Izquierdo generates virtual universes within hours to simulate how galaxies grow via mergers and how they self-regulate alongside black holes.

The researcher points out a fundamental nexus: the universe, the climate, and ecosystems share the nature of complex systems formed by a multitude of interacting elements (particles, stars, gas, or living beings) whose global behaviour one attempts to comprehend.

Terrestrial application and the return to Spain

Thanks to a Junior Leader postdoctoral fellowship from the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Izquierdo was able to return to Spain after five years abroad. This support has allowed him to hire a student and apply cosmo-virtual algorithms to climate modelling.

The ultimate goal is to achieve more precise weather predictions in the short, medium, and long term (weeks, months, or decades), helping to anticipate phenomena such as droughts, heatwaves, or precipitation patterns. Although his gaze encompasses the cosmos, he confesses his concern over society's lack of preparedness in the face of the current climate emergency.

David Chaparro: environmental remote sensing to probe the "thirst" of forests

Graduated in Biology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), with master's degrees in Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing, and Terrestrial Ecology, and collaborative research stints at MIT, David Chaparro (37 years old) carries out his scientific work at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) in Cerdanyola del Vallès.

Detecting drought before it is visible

His primary research obsession consists in determining whether a forest "is thirsty" before the symptoms of water stress are perceptible to the naked eye. In a context marked by an increase in heatwaves and prolonged droughts, knowing the exact moisture content of leaves and stems is vital for fire prevention services and forest management.

To this end, Chaparro resorts to environmental remote sensing:

• Remote observation: Uses satellites, drones, aircraft, and GPS sensors to measure the water status of forest biomass.
• Infrared sensors: Monitor the real temperature of leaves.
• Microwave frequencies: Apply medium-low frequency electromagnetic radiation algorithms to calculate the density, volume, and moisture of vegetation.

The MOIST project and the Prades mountains

A crucial part of his work takes place in the Prades mountains (Tarragona and Lleida), a massif of over 30,000 hectares of Mediterranean forest where Scots pine mortality reaches alarming levels, drastically transforming the landscape.

Through the MOIST project, promoted by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, his team seeks to measure the internal tension of water flow in trees — comparable to suction through a straw — to prevent plant embolisms that put forest survival at risk and multiply the danger of wildfires.

A global commitment to research excellence

The stories of Mario Bielsa, David Izquierdo, and David Chaparro reflect the impact of the grants awarded by the institution. In total, 100 researchers develop their projects in Spain and Portugal thanks to 60 fellowships from the INPhINIT doctoral programme and 40 fellowships from the ”la Caixa” Foundation's Junior Leader postdoctoral programme.

As Josep Maria Coronas, general director of the institution, summarises, the fundamental purpose of these initiatives is "to empower these brilliant minds so they develop their ideas under the best possible conditions and promote a scientific ecosystem capable of transforming realities." Faced with a pressing climate crisis, basic and applied science establishes itself as the indispensable pillar for adapting society to a future in constant transformation.