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Western Mediterranean Climate Response to Dansgaard/Oeschger Events: New Insights From Speleothem Records
Author(s) -
Budsky Alexander,
Wassenburg Jasper A.,
MertzKraus Regina,
Spötl Christoph,
Jochum Klaus Peter,
Gibert Luis,
Scholz Denis
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl084009
Subject(s) - mediterranean climate , speleothem , holocene , climatology , geology , precipitation , paleoclimatology , climate change , stadial , ice core , atmospheric circulation , oceanography , geography , cave , archaeology , meteorology
Abstract The climate of the western Mediterranean was characterized by a strong precipitation gradient during the Holocene driven by atmospheric circulation patterns. The scarcity of terrestrial paleoclimate archives has precluded exploring this hydroclimate pattern during Marine Isotope Stages 5 to 3. Here we present stable carbon and oxygen isotope records from three flowstones from southeast Iberia, which show that Dansgaard/Oeschger events were associated with more humid conditions. This is in agreement with other records from the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and western Europe, which all responded in a similar way to millennial‐scale climate variability in Greenland. This general increase in precipitation during Dansgaard/Oeschger events cannot be explained by any present‐day or Holocene winter atmospheric circulation pattern. Instead, we suggest that changes in sea surface temperature played a dominant role in determining precipitation amounts in the western Mediterranean.