研究南极气候环境变化对于理解全球气候变化机制及其区域响应具有重要意义。前期我们主要对南维多利亚地罗斯岛等地的生物粪土层开展了研究，恢复了企鹅古生态演化过程，但对陆地环境的气候变化历史认识还非常有限。本项目拟在对北维多利亚地典型无冰区特别是难言岛进行详细野外调查的基础上，以湖泊沉积剖面为主要载体，综合对比和应用多个具有气候和生态环境意义的代用指标，重建过去3000年难言岛气候环境变化和企鹅古生态演化历史，揭示研究区晚全新世以来气候环境变化的基本特征，查明气候变化对难言岛企鹅古生态时空演化过程的影响，进而开展南北维多利亚地纬向上的空间对比研究，揭示维多利亚地晚全新世气候环境变化的一般规律和区域差异，探明企鹅古生态在纬向上的演替过程及其与气候变化之间的关联。研究成果将极大地扩展我们对维多利亚地气候环境变化规律的认识，也为我国在维多利亚地可能建立的新科学考察站提供有价值的数据资料和科技支撑。

Studying the climatic and environmental changes in Antarctica is critical for us to understand the mechanism of global climate change and its regional response. We have studied ornithogenic sediments in Ross Island of South Victoria Land in an attempt to reconstruct the evolution history of penguin paleoecology in this area. However, the knowledge on terrestrial climate change is still very limited. In this project, we propose to carry out a comprehensive field investigation in the typical ice-free areas of North Victoria Land, in particular the Inexpressible Island, and to synthetically compare and utilize multiple proxies extracted from the lacustrine or pond sediment profiles for paleoclimatic and plaeoecological changes. The combination of field work and laboratory analyses allows us to reconstruct the climatic and environmental changes at Inexpressible Island and the evolution history of penguin paleoecology in the past 3000 years, to characterize the climatic and environmental changes in regional scale since the late Holocene, as well as to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the temporal and spatial evolutions of penguin paleoecology at Inexpressible Island. Further studies will be carried out to investigate the latitudinal variation in the Victoria Land from north to south. This will reflect the general rules of climate change in the whole Victoria Land and its regional variability during the late Holocene, and it will also reveal the latitudinal variation of evolution of penguin paleoecology in addition to its relationship with paleoclimate change. The research results will greatly improve our understanding of paleoclimatic and environmental change in Victoria Land, as well as provide valuable data and technical support for the set up of a potential new Chinese scientific research station in the Victoria Land.