Climate variations in the eastern Mediterranean over the last centuries Elena Xoplaki, Jürg Luterbacher Juan José Gómez-Navarro, Eduardo Zorita, Johannes Werner, Christos Zerefos PAGES Euro-Med 2k Consortium Justus-Liebig-University Giessen

Outline The Mediterranean Basin Multi-proxy summer temperature reconstruction Coupled MM5 – ECHO-G RCM Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age Conclusions

The Mediterranean Sea, orography, km coastline One eco-region: 10% of vegetation species, 7% of marine species 21 countries and the EU, Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention 430 Mio inhab., 7% world population, 13% world GDP, 33% international tourism

Vulnerability in the Mediterranean Deforestation, afforestation, desertification Land degradation Food production, food security Livelihood Civil security, migration Political conflicts Health, vector borne and tick borne diseases Energy demand, energy generation, solar, wind

length of the proxies varies proxies reflect different climate information (temperature, precipitation, sea level changes, pH, sea water temperature, water mass circulation, etc.) proxies may record climate conditions at different times of the year proxies have a different temporal resolution (from daily to multi-decadal) Eastern Mediterranean terrestrial and marine proxies Lelieveld, Xoplaki et al. 2012

Eastern Mediterranean summer temperature reconstruction Lelieveld, Xoplaki et al. 2012

Eastern Mediterranean winter precipitation reconstruction Lelieveld, Xoplaki et al. 2012

New summer temperature reconstruction

Simulated and reconstructed NH temperature changes Masson-Delmotte et al., 2013 IPCC AR5, WGI, Chapter 5

Proxy time series Hardly any temperature information PAGES Euro-Med 2k Consortium in prep.

Reconstruction approach

20thLIAMCA Summer temperature anomaly multi-proxy reconstruction - EMed PAGES Euro-Med consortium in prep

The MM5 – ECHO-G model

Regional model setup 45 km resolution domain implemented in the regional simulations  Modified climate version of the MM5 (mesoscale meteorological model)  Parameterizations chosen to reduce computational cost and retaining accurate skill  Boundaries updated every 12 hours  No spectral nudging  Two domains of 135 and 45 km Gómez-Navarro et al. Clim. Past 2013

ECHO-G / OETZI2 external forcings OETZI2 Driven by ECHO-G:  Atmospheric-Ocean Coupled General Circulation Model  Spectral model (T30)  Prescribed external forcings high uncertainty volcanic activity  no volcanic forcing Hünicke et al. 2010

Summer temperature anomaly Eastern Mediterranean

Medieval Climate Anomaly Summer

MCA minus LIA Summer

500hPa differences MCA minus LIA

Conclusions Lack of annually resolved climate proxies in the area High temporal and spatial resolution summer temperature reconstruction The recent summer temperatures seem not to be unprecedented in the context of the last millennium High resolution RCM allows for accurate spatial structure of climate variability, in a complex terrain RCM strong warming in the 20th century connected with the lack of net cooling by tropospheric aerosols