Tracing a Late Holocene glacial climatic signal from source to sink under intensifying human erosion of Eastern Mediterranean landscapes

Abstract

The Holocene glaciations in the majority of Eastern Mediterranean mountains are generally obscured, as warm climate and their relatively low elevations prohibited the formation of glacial ice and discernible glacial landforms. This work reviews the Holocene glacial phases on Mount Olympus, emphasizes the relative roles of external forcing and of the climatic drivers that triggered each episode of glaciation and traces the climatic signal of a Late Holocene glacial phase from source to sink. The Late Holocene glacial phase on Mount Olympus took place between 3.3 and 2.3 ka BP, during a period of solar minima, a negative phase of NAO, and overall wet conditions characterized by enhanced fluvial inputs in the North Aegean Sea, and also by increasing human-induced erosion in the lowlands. The climatic expression associated with the Late Holocene inception of glacial ice on Mount Olympus, detected in speleothem, paleoflood, marine sedimentary and planktonic foraminiferal records, may have occurred in other high cirques of the Balkan Peninsular and the Eastern Mediterranean.