The climate of the Mediterranean region: research progress and climate change impacts

Abstract

This special issue was proposed at the second MedCLIVAR conference (which was held in Madrid, Spain, 26–29 September 2012) and has received a wide range of contributions covering different and complementary topics: paleo-climate, present climate variability and trends, extremes, climate projections, and impacts of future climate change on the regional environment and societies. All these topics (see Lionello et al. 2012b, for a synthesis) are subject of a rapidly evolving research, which has the sensitivity of the Mediterranean region to climate change as a main motivation. In fact, in the last decades in the Mediterranean region, temperatures have risen faster than the global average and model projections agree on its future warming and drying, with a likely increase of heat waves and dry spells. Further, countries around the Mediterranean basin are characterized by strong differences, as shown by various socioeconomic and environmental indicators, such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP), energy supply, CO2 emissions, and water availability. Environmental issues are exacerbated by societal aspect, as the whole region is densely populated with many Middle East and North African (MENA) countries expected to double their population by the mid-twenty-first century. A growing dependence on irrigation in MENA countries will likely increase their economic and social vulnerability, because of future reduced total water availability and rapidly growing competing urban water demands. This issue is an outcome of the work carried on within the MedCLIVAR network. It describes recent progresses on the understanding of the climate of the Mediterranean region and the impacts of its future evolution on the environment and people. MedCLIVAR (Mediterranean CLImate VARiability) has been running continuously for about 10 years. It was initially proposed at the 2003 European Geosciences Union assembly in Nice (France), endorsed by the international Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) office in 2005, and supported by the European Science Foundation for the period 2006–2011. This special issue is the latest contribution to the MedCLIVAR dissemination activity, which has already produced three books (Lionello et al. 2006; Vicente-Serrano and Trigo 2011; Lionello 2012) and 4 special issues (Lionello et al. 2008; Jones et al. 2011; Lionello 2012; P. Lionello (&) DISTeBA, University of Salento, CMCC – Centro EuroMediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, via per Monteroni 165, Block M, 73100 Lecce, Italy e-mail: piero.lionello@unisalento.it