Abstract
Abstract. We present a reconstruction of the change in climatic humidity around the Mediterranean between 3000–1000 yr BP. Using a range of proxy archives and model simulations we demonstrate that climate during this period was typified by a millennial-scale seesaw in climatic humidity between Spain and Israel on one side and the Central Mediterranean and Turkey on the other, similar to precipitation anomalies associated with the East Atlantic/West Russia pattern in current climate. We find that changes in the position and intensity of the jet stream indicated by our analysis correlate with millennial changes in North Atlantic sea surface temperature. A model simulation indicates the proxies of climatic humidity used in our analysis were unlikely to be influenced by climatic aridification caused by deforestation during the Roman Period. That finding is supported by an analysis of the distribution of archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean which exhibits no evidence that human habitation distribution changed since ancient times as a result of climatic aridification. Therefore we conclude that changes in climatic humidity over the Mediterranean during the Roman Period were primarily caused by a modification of the jet stream linked to sea surface temperature change in the North Atlantic. Based on our findings, we propose that ocean-atmosphere coupling may have contributed to regulating Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation intensity during the period of analysis.
Highlights
How human civilisation will adapt to future climate change caused by natural and anthropogenic forcings is an issue of extensive research and intense debate (IPCC, 2007)
The spatial pattern of the loadings from EOF1 indicates that the dominant change in climatic humidity during 3000–1000 yr BP was opposite between Turkey and the three other regions: Norway, NW Spain and Israel (NSI)
That finding is supported by an analysis of the distribution of archaeological sites in the Fertile Crescent, which exhibits no evidence that human habitation distribution changed since ancient times as a result of climatic aridification
Summary
How human civilisation will adapt to future climate change caused by natural and anthropogenic forcings is an issue of extensive research and intense debate (IPCC, 2007). Climate change is nothing new for human civilisation and much can be learned from understanding how past societies responded to changes in climate. One of the most advanced and enduring societies were the Romans who existed for almost 1000 yr in the Central Mediterranean during a period when climate oscillated between relatively cool and warm phases (Bianchi and McCave, 1999; Desprat et al, 2003). To understand how the Romans adapted to climate change it is important to build a picture of the change in precipitation around the Mediterranean during the Roman Period (RP) It is proposed that large-scale deforestation beginning in the RP caused the climate around the Mediterranean to become drier as a result of a decrease in evaporative
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