Climate field reconstructions of eastern Mediterranean hydroclimate

Abstract

The Mediterranean Basin has suffered from severe droughts in the past several decades and has been identified by general circulation models as a region likely to experience increasingly dry conditions as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Models disagree however on the magnitude of changes in precipitation, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration associated with projected drying in the region. Here we use a 'Point-to-Point' local principal components regression approach to develop climate field reconstructions of drought and precipitation variability in the eastern Mediterranean from a network of over 70 tree-ring width chronologies back to 1238 CE. Reconstructions reveal droughts substantially more severe than observed throughout the record, particularly in the 15th century when tree rings indicate an epoch of sustained drought conditions. Comparing this new reconstruction with our previous work in northwestern Africa shows a tendency for both regions to be simultaneously in drought, in agreement with climate models and limited observations.