Environmental and diatom data obtained from a survey of Campbell Island's lakes and ponds 2010-2011

Public Summary of AAS project 4156 - High resolution reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability in the sub-Antarctic during the last two millennia Our understanding of global climate and ability to predict future changes is limited by a lack of long-term (palaeoclimate) data from the Southern Hemisphere (SH). Sub-Antarctic islands are the only landmasses between Antarctica and the mid latitudes where terrestrial palaeoclimate records exist, making them crucial locations for linking data from the mid and high latitudes.

Using lake sediments from sub-Antarctic islands, we will examine how the climate and ecosystems have changed over the last 2000 years. This will contribute vital information to understand SH climate and ecosystem variability Taken from the abstract of the referenced paper: Sub-Antarctic islands are ideally placed to reconstruct past changes in Southern Hemisphere westerly wind behaviour. They lie within their core belt (50-60 degrees South) and the strong winds deliver sea salt ions to the islands resulting in a west to east conductivity gradient in their water bodies.