El Corte Inglés Málaga will host the lecture "Cuando desaparece un mar: expedición científica al mar de Aral" on Friday, October 23, at 7:30 p.m. The talk will be delivered by Dr Enrique Moreno-Ostos, Associate Professor of Ecology at the University of Málaga (UMA). The event is part of the 2nd Scientific Expeditions Lecture Series, organised by Encuentros con la Ciencia, and will be introduced by Dr Enrique Viguera Mínguez, coordinator of the series.

How does a sea disappear, and what happens afterwards? Located in Central Asia, the Aral Sea was one of the largest lakes on the planet until just a few decades ago. The diversion of the rivers that fed it to irrigate vast agricultural areas caused its waters to recede dramatically, leaving behind an immense salt desert where an inland sea once lay.

However, the consequences of this transformation extend far beyond the loss of water. An international team of scientists, including researchers from the University of Málaga, ventured onto the former seabed to study the processes taking place in this extreme landscape. The expedition combined fieldwork, sediment analysis, gas measurements and drone imagery to investigate a phenomenon that remains largely unexplored.

The findings revealed that the sediments of the former sea contain enormous amounts of carbon accumulated over thousands of years. Once exposed to the air, these sediments begin to release some of that carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. This discovery adds a new dimension to the Aral Sea disaster, which is not only an ecological, social and economic tragedy, but may also affect the global carbon cycle and the planet’s climate.

The research also raises a fundamental question: could restoring water to some of these areas help mitigate climate change? Scientists estimate that reflooding certain zones could prevent the release of millions of additional tonnes of carbon still stored in the sediments.

This lecture offers an opportunity to discover the story behind a scientific expedition to one of the most extraordinary places on Earth and to understand how the disappearance of an ecosystem can trigger consequences that extend far beyond what we can see with the naked eye.