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Enhancing spatiotemporal paleoclimate reconstructions of hydroclimate across the Mediterranean over the last millennium

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Abstract

The Mediterranean region is projected to experience severe drying trends and more extreme hydroclimate events as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change over the next century. In some places this signal may have already emerged from natural variability, but uncertainty in long-term paleoclimate reconstructions can be a significant challenge to the detection of the influence of rising \(\text {CO}_{2}\) on droughts. Here we provide expanded context for recent and future hydroclimate changes with a new high-resolution (0.5\(^o\)) spatial reconstruction of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) using a tree-ring network that spans much of the last millennium. This network provides new perspective on the existing Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) and allows us to characterize differences between OWDA and our reconstruction. In light of the uncertainties we identify, we also reexamine previous conclusions about the severity of recent droughts in the context of earlier centuries. We find that, in both the western Mediterranean and the Levant, recent dry periods remain the worst in at least the last 500 years, but our assessment of the significance and confidence in this finding is affected by differences in the tree-ring networks used for the reconstructions. Long millennium-length hydroclimate reconstructions in the Mediterranean do provide the opportunity to understand variability and trends in the hydroclimate of the region, but extant uncertainties arising from the existing tree-ring chronology network and methodological choices call attention to locations that require further proxy collection, chronology updates, and statistical scrutiny.

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Data Availability Statement

All the raw measurements, site chronologies, and reconstructions associated with this manuscript will be archived with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) World Data System for Paleoclimatology at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology upon publication of this manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank in Morocco (Ministry of Agriculture and the National School of Forest Engineering), Algeria (General Directorate of Forestry, Conservators of the Forests of Batna, National Parks of Belezma, Thniet el Had, Djurdjura, and Chréa), Tunisia (Institute of Sylvo-Pastoral of Tabarka and Institut national de recherche en génie rural, eaux et forêts (l’INRGREF)), Turkey (Ministry of Forestry, Southwest Anatolia Forest Research Institute (SAFRI)), Greece (Forest Protection, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Cyprus (Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Forestry, Cyprus Forestry College, and Cyprus Meteorological Service), Lebanon (Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Forestry and University of Balamand), Syria (University of Aleppo-Faculty of Agriculture), Southern Italy (Sila National Park and Aspromonte National Park), and Southeastern Spain (Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning and Regional Government of Andalusia). We thank Martin Munro for his advice and suggestions. We thank Alexis H. Arizpe, Christopher Baisan, Russell Biggs, Gurudas C. Bock, Jeffrey Balmat, and William E. Wright for their valuable assistance in the field. We thank Jim Burns and William E. Wright for their help in dating part of the tree-ring sites. We also thank Russell Biggs, Victoria L. Frazier, Alicia Stout, Gurudas C. Bock, Jessica L. Little, Anthony P. Trujillo, Jeremy Goral, and Julie Wong for their assistance in sample preparation and measurement.

Funding

Funding to develop the Mediterranean tree-ring network and climate reconstructions was provided by grants from the US National Science Foundation’s Earth System History (ESH) and Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change (P2C2) programs, AGS-075956, AGS-0758486, AGS-0317288, AGS-1103314, AGS-1103450, AGS-1501856.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Development and Environment and Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, US

    Kevin J. Anchukaitis

  2. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Ramzi Touchan & David M. Meko

  3. Institute of Veterinary and Agronomy Sciences, University of Batna 1, Batna, Algeria

    Dalila Kherchouche

  4. Department of Ecology, Faculty of Biological and Agricultural Sciences, Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou, Tizi Ouzou, Algeria

    Said Slimani

  5. Department of Forest Management, Faculty of Forestry, Kastamonu University, 37150, Kastamonu, Türkiye

    Fatih Sivrikaya

  6. Department of Hydraulic, Environment and Climate (HEC), Hassania School of Public Works (EHTP), km 7, Road of El Jadida, P. O. Box 8108, Oasis-Casablanca, Morocco

    Rachid Ilmen

  7. Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), L.Mesogeion 207, 11525, Athens, Greece

    Ioannis Mitsopoulos

  8. Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Natural Resources, Faculty of Science Fanar, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon

    Jean Stephan

  9. Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Balamand, Balamand, Lebanon

    Jihad Attieh

  10. Institute of Sylvo-pastoral of Tabaraka, Tabarka, Tunisia

    Foued Hasnaoui

  11. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, IPE-CSIC, Avda. Montañana 1005, 50059, Zaragoza, Spain

    J. Julio Camarero & Raúl Sánchez-Salguero

  12. Department of Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Univ. Pablo de Olavide, Ctra. Utrera km. 1, 41013, Seville, Spain

    Raúl Sánchez-Salguero

  13. Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology, Aix Marseille Univ, Avignon University, CNRS, IRD, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Frederic Guibal

  14. Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Torino, Largo Braccini 2, 10095, Grugliasco, Italy

    Alma Piermattei

  15. Department of Forests, 1414, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Andreas Christou

  16. National Geodetic Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Silver Spring, Maryland, US

    Jordan Krcmaric

  17. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, US

    Benjamin I. Cook

  18. Forest Biometrics Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, “Stefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Str. Universitatii 13, Suceava, Romania

    Alma Piermattei

Authors
  1. Kevin J. Anchukaitis
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  2. Ramzi Touchan
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  3. David M. Meko
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  4. Dalila Kherchouche
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  5. Said Slimani
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  6. Fatih Sivrikaya
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  7. Rachid Ilmen
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  8. Ioannis Mitsopoulos
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  9. Jean Stephan
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  10. Jihad Attieh
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  11. Foued Hasnaoui
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  12. J. Julio Camarero
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  13. Raúl Sánchez-Salguero
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  14. Frederic Guibal
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  15. Alma Piermattei
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  16. Andreas Christou
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  17. Jordan Krcmaric
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  18. Benjamin I. Cook
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Contributions

Kevin Anchukaitis and Ramzi Touchan designed the study. All authors contributed to material preparation and data collection. Analyses were performed by Kevin Anchukaitis, Ramzi Touchan, David Meko, Jordan Krcmaric, and Benjamin Cook. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin J. Anchukaitis.

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Anchukaitis, K.J., Touchan, R., Meko, D.M. et al. Enhancing spatiotemporal paleoclimate reconstructions of hydroclimate across the Mediterranean over the last millennium. Clim Dyn (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07166-6

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