Tracing the influence of Mediterranean climate on Southeastern Europe during the past 350,000 years.

Igor Obreht,Zorica Svirčev,Janina Bösken,Daniel Veres,Frank Lehmkuhl,Slobodan B Marković,Ulrich Hambach,Milivoj B Gavrilov,Christian Zeeden,Nikola Bačević

doi:10.1038/srep36334

Igor Obreht, Zorica Svirčev + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36334

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Abstract

Loess-palaeosol sequences are valuable archives of past environmental changes. Although regional palaeoclimatic trends and conditions in Southeastern Europe have been inferred from loess sequences, large scale forcing mechanisms responsible for their formation have yet to be determined. Southeastern Europe is a climatically sensitive region, existing under the strong influence of both Mediterranean and continental climates. Establishment of the spatial and temporal evolution and interaction of these climatic areas is essential to understand the mechanisms of loess formation. Here we present high-resolution grain-size, environmental magnetic, spectrophotometric and geochemical data from the Stalać section in the Central Balkans (Serbia) for the past ~350,000 years. The goal of this study is to determine the influence of the Mediterranean climate during this period. Data show that the Central Balkans were under different atmospheric circulation regimes, especially during Marine Isotope Stages 9 and 7, while continental climate prevailed further north. We observe a general weakening of the Mediterranean climate influence with time. Our data suggest that Marine Isotope Stage 5 was the first interglacial in the Central Balkans that had continental climate characteristics. This prominent shift in climatic conditions resulted in unexpectedly warm and humid conditions during the last glacial.

Highlights

Knowledge of past climate variability based on the study of palaeoclimate archives may help clarify past climatic forcing mechanisms and help predict the extent of future climate change[1,2]
We examined grain-size, environmental magnetism, and other spectrophotometric and geochemical proxies to reconstruct past climatic and environmental dynamics for the past 350,000 years
The main goal of this study is to better understand the degree to which Mediterranean and continental climate zones have influenced this part of Southeastern Europe, by comparing loess deposits in the Central Balkans and palaeo-archives from the surrounding areas

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge of past climate variability based on the study of palaeoclimate archives may help clarify past climatic forcing mechanisms and help predict the extent of future climate change[1,2]. The main goal of this study is to better understand the degree to which Mediterranean and continental climate zones have influenced this part of Southeastern Europe, by comparing loess deposits in the Central Balkans and palaeo-archives from the surrounding areas (the continental Middle Danube Basin, the South Balkans and the Mediterranean itself). Past climatic intervals, proposed as the best analogues to modern conditions according to astronomically driven orbital changes on global scale (e.g. Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 11 and 191) may not strictly be representative in this region, since those periods experienced more humid conditions In such a region with no comparable analogues, research on the interaction between large scale climate systems and their feedback mechanisms is important to the understanding of future climate change. We evaluate the influence of global climate changes on the continental part of Southeastern Europe

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