Welcome to the AMG lab
Latest research in Alfredo Martínez García's laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC)
The AMG lab studies the evolution of the Earth system including its physical, chemical and biological components. We combine the study of modern processes with the analysis of past climatic and environmental archives such as marine and lake sediment sequences, deep and shallow water scleractinian corals, speleothems, tooth enamel and ice cores using a variety of geochemical techniques, including organic biomarkers, and stable isotopes of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen.
Latest Research Highlights
Southern Ocean upwelling, Earth’s obliquity, and glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO2 change
December 11, 2020
Previous studies have suggested that during the late Pleistocene ice ages, surface-deep exchange was somehow weakened in the Southern Ocean’s Antarctic Zone, which reduced the leakage of deeply sequestered carbon dioxide and thus contributed to the lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of the ice ages. In a study published in the journal Science we describe three modes of change in Southern Westerly Wind–driven upwelling, each affecting atmospheric carbon dioxide. Two modes have been proposed previously. The third mode we propose in this study arises from the meridional temperature gradient as affected by Earth’s obliquity (axial tilt), and can explain the lag of atmospheric carbon dioxide behind climate during glacial inception and deglaciation. This obliquity-induced lag, in turn, makes carbon dioxide a delayed climate amplifier in the late Pleistocene glacial cycles.