Stalagmite-inferred abrupt hydroclimate changes in the central Mediterranean over the past 6500 years

Abstract:

Mediterranean, as one of the global climate change “hot spots”, was faced with severe drought over the recent decades. Investigation of regional paleo-hydroclimate evolution helps improve climate projection and adaption strategy. Here, we present a new decadal-resolved record documenting hydroclimate in the central Mediterranean from an Italian stalagmite since 6500 years ago. Eighty high-precision absolute U-Th dates with 2-sigma uncertainty better than ±20 years and 560 oxygen isotopic ratio data show several abrupt drying events with an average of 600 mm precipitation decrease in less than 80 years since the mid-Holocene. North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) could dominantly govern the centennial–scale hydroclimate variability, especially for a period of 4500 to 2000 years ago. Total solar irradiance (TSI) also partially affected this regional precipitation. The obscure relationship between stalagmite and global/local mean surface temperature sequences, in contradict to previous studies, implies complex internal feedback of global warming and atmospheric circulation in the Mediterranean. Our result suggests that the twenty-first century Mediterranean drying trend is significant but not unprecedented in the past six thousand years.