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Mediterranean winter snowfall variability over the past millennium
Author(s) -
Diodato Nazzareno,
Büntgen Ulf,
Bellocchi Gianni
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.5814
Subject(s) - snow , climatology , proxy (statistics) , mediterranean climate , anomaly (physics) , volcano , climate change , environmental science , physical geography , geography , geology , meteorology , oceanography , physics , archaeology , condensed matter physics , machine learning , seismology , computer science
The brevity of the instrumental record limits our understanding of snowfall variability and its directional patterns in the Mediterranean region. Here, we develop a 1,208‐year‐long (800–2017 CE) reconstruction of central Mediterranean snowfall variability based on documentary evidence from Italy. The record suggests that the recent reduction in Italian snowfall intensity is not unprecedented over the past millennium, since comparable patterns of low snowfall intensity also occurred during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Increased snowfall during the Little Ice Age, however, was most likely associated with a shift of the Atlantic multi‐decadal variability towards negative values, and this overall cold phase further coincided with increased volcanic activity. Our findings on natural snowfall variability over the central Mediterranean in the past millennium provide a unique winter proxy for validating output from climate model simulations.