Rapid Holocene Climate Changes in the Eastern Mediterranean

Offset timing of climate oscillations during the last two glacial‐interglacial transitions connected with large‐scale freshwater perturbation

“…Marine and terrestrial records provided ample evidence for past climate variability in Mediterranean Europe on orbital and suborbital timescales. Paleoceanographic profiles at Mediterranean Sea core sites displayed a close structural correlation with paleoclimatic variability recorded in North Atlantic marine cores and Greenland ice cores [e.g., Cacho et al , ; Sbaffi et al , ; Marchal et al , ; Rohling et al , ; Sprovieri et al , ; Martrat et al , ; Pérez‐Folgado et al , ; Moreno et al , ] which demonstrated the impact of the North Atlantic paleoclimatology on Mediterranean Sea circulation and climate variability. Some of the variability was connected with changes of the Mediterranean's marine heat and freshwater budget which was diagnostic of atmospheric circulation changes.…”

“…The imprints of Heinrich events were traced across the Mediterranean and were suggested to be linked with the advection of subpolar low‐salinity water from the North Atlantic and coincident polar air outbreaks over the Mediterranean [ Cacho , ; Rohling et al , ; Cacho et al , ; Frigola et al , ; Rodrigo‐Gámiz et al , ; Sprovieri et al , ; Di Stefano et al , ]. Comparison with the hydrographic imprint of H1 shows that the δ 18 O sw anomaly produced by H11 at ODP976 was about twice as high and lasted approximately 30% longer than H1.…”

Holocene Supra-Regional Environmental Changes as Trigger for Major Socio-Cultural Processes in Northeastern Africa and the Sahara

“…Early Holocene river activity and surface groundwater recharge are recorded also in the most remote parts of the Libyan Desert, as in the Kufra region (Pachur 1980;Becker and Fürst 1991;di Lernia et al 2008). The Libyan and Egyptian drainage systems became active, contributing to the discharge of freshwater into the Mediterranean Sea and allowing the environmental conditions suitable for the deposition of organic-rich sapropel (Rossignol-Strick et al 1982;Krom et al 2002;Rohling et al 2002). In the Central Sahara, some wadis were flowing into endorheic deltas, as in the case of Wadi Tanezzuft (Perego et al 2007;Cremaschi and Zerboni 2009).…”

Warfare in Late Neolithic\Early Chalcolithic Pisidia, southwestern Turkey. Climate induced social unrest in the late 7th millennium calBC

“…Such outbreaks still occur today, and for a summary and data of such an event in December 2001, we refer to Casford et al (2003;and below). The northerly outbreaks are a conse-quence of the Mediterranean's latitudinal position and its mountainous northerly margin, which exert an important control on circulation and water-mass transformations in the Mediterranean Sea, and contemporaneous cooling events have been found in the Adriatic Sea and in the western Mediterranean (Rohling et al 1997;2002b;Casford et al 2001;Cacho et al 1999;2001;Frigola et al 2007). To understand the relationship between the frequency and intensity of wintertime northerly outbreaks over the Mediterranean and the climatic patterns inferred from proxy records from the wider northern hemisphere (particularly the Greenland ice sheet), we first consider the main drivers behind the general climatic conditions over the region.…”