Terrestrial climate variability and seasonality changes in the Mediterranean region between 15,000 and 4,000 years B.P. deduced from marine pollen records

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Dormoy, Isabelle, Peyron, Odile, Combourieu-Nebout, Nathalie, Goring, Simon, Kotthoff, Ulrich, Magny, Michel, Pross, Joerg
• Other Authors: Laboratoire Chrono-environnement (UMR 6249) (LCE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Franche-Comté (UFC), Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté COMUE (UBFC)-Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté COMUE (UBFC), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paléocéanographie (PALEOCEAN), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Biological Sciences Burnaby, Simon Fraser University (SFU.ca), Department of Geosciences, Universität Hamburg (UHH), Institute of Geosciences Frankfurt am Main, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, The publication of this article is financed by CNRS-INSU., ANR LAMA, ANR-07-BLAN-0009,LAMA,Holocene changes in environment and climate, and history of human societies in Central Mediterranean as reflected by LAke and MArine records(2007)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2009
• Subjects: [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Gam; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00419720; https://hal.science/hal-00419720/document; https://hal.science/hal-00419720/file/cp-5-615-2009.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-5-615-2009

International audience Pollen-based climate reconstructions were performed on two high-resolution pollen marines cores from the Alboran and Aegean Seas in order to unravel the climatic variability in the coastal settings of the Mediterranean region between 15 000 and 4000 years BP (the Lateglacial, and early to mid-Holocene). The quantitative climate reconstructions for the Alboran and Aegean Sea records focus mainly on the reconstruction of the seasonality changes (tempera-tures and precipitation), a crucial parameter in the Mediter-ranean region. This study is based on a multi-method approach comprising 3 methods: the Modern Analogues Technique (MAT), the recent Non-Metric Multidimensional Scal-ing/Generalized Additive Model method (NMDS/GAM) and Partial Least Squares regression (PLS). The climate signal inferred from this comparative approach confirms that cold and dry conditions prevailed in the Mediterranean region during the Oldest and Younger Dryas periods, while temperate conditions prevailed during the Bølling/Allerød and the Holocene. Our records suggest a West/East gradient of decreasing precipitation across the Mediterranean region during the cooler Late-glacial and early Holocene periods, similar to present-day conditions. Winter precipitation was highest during warm intervals and lowest during cooling phases. Several short-lived cool intervals (i.e. Older Dryas, another oscillation after this one (GI-1c2), Gerzensee/Preboreal Correspondence to: I. Dormoy ([e-mail]) Oscillations, 8.2 ka event, Bond events) connected to the North Atlantic climate system are documented in the Albo-ran and Aegean Sea records indicating that the climate oscillations associated with the successive steps of the deglacia-tion in the North Atlantic area occurred in both the western and eastern Mediterranean regions. This observation confirms the presence of strong climatic linkages between the North Atlantic and Mediterranean regions.