Past 200 kyr hydroclimate variability in the western Mediterranean and its connection to the African Humid Periods

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Camuera, Jon, Ramos-Román, María J., Jiménez-Moreno, Gonzalo, García-Alix, Antonio, Ilvonen, Liisa, Ruha, Leena, Gil-Romera, Graciela, González-Sampériz, Penélope, Seppä, Heikki
• Other Authors: European Research Council, European Commission, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España), Junta de Andalucía, Gobierno de Aragón, German Research Foundation, Academy of Finland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Springer Nature 2022
• Subjects: Atlantic Ocean; Droughts; Humidity; Lakes; Pollen; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/358079; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12047-1

The Iberian Peninsula is located at the intersection between the subtropical and temperate climate zones and the paleoclimate records from this region are key to elucidate the varying humidity and changing dominance of atmospheric circulation patterns in the Mediterranean-North African region in the past. Here we present a quantitative hydroclimate reconstruction for the last ca. 200 kyr from southern Iberian Peninsula based on pollen data from the Padul lake sediment record. We use the newly developed Scale-normalized Significant Zero crossing (SnSiZer) method to detect not only the statistically significant precipitation changes but also to estimate the relative magnitude of these oscillations in our reconstruction. We identify six statistically significant main humid phases, termed West Mediterranean Humid Periods (WMHP 1–6). These humid periods correlate with other West/Central Mediterranean paleohydrological records, suggesting that similar climatic factors affected different areas of the Mediterranean. In addition, the WMPHs are roughly coeval with the African Humid Periods (AHPs) during high seasonality, suggesting the same North Atlantic ocean-atmospheric dynamics and orbital forcing as main drivers of both areas. In contrast, during low seasonality periods, the West Mediterranean still appears to be affected by the westerlies and the local Mediterranean rainfall systems with moderate-to-high precipitation, whereas West Africa was characterized by droughts. This research is funded by the Academy of Finland (GRASS, project number 1316702), the European Research Council (YMPACT, project number 788616), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (projects CGL2013-47038-R, CGL2015-69160-R and CGL2017-85415-R), the Junta de Andalucía FEDER (projects P-20-00059 and UGR-FEDER B-RNM-144-UGR18) and the research groups RNM-190 (Junta de Andalucía) and E02-20R (Gobierno de Aragón). G.G.-R. acknowledges the funding received from the German Research Foundation–DFG–program (project FOR2358 "Mountain Exile ...