Lacustrine sedimentation patterns at the Northern Antarctic Peninsula and surroundings as a response to late Holocene and Modern Climate changes.

The Northern Antarctic Peninsula (NAP) and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) are likely to respond rapidly to climate changes by increasing the collapse of peripheral ice shelves and the number of days above 0 °C. These facts make this region a representative hotspot of the global sea level rise and the location of one of the global climate tipping points (thresholds in the Earth system whose changes may become irreversible, if exceeded). Understanding the climate evolution of the NAP, based on past evidences, may help infer its future scenario.

Laser spectroscopy steered C-labelling of plant material in a walk-in growth chamber.

Rationale: Carbon-13 ( C)-labelled plant material forms the basis for experiments elucidating soil organic carbon dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions. Quantitative field-scale tracing is only possible if plants are labelled homogeneously in large quantities. By using a laser spectrometer to automatically steer the isotopic ratio in the chamber, it is possible to obtain large amounts of homogeneously labelled plant material.