Catastrophic arid episodes in the Eastern Mediterranean linked with the North Atlantic Heinrich events

Bartov, Y.; Goldstein, Steven L.; Stein, Mordechai; Enzel, Yehouda

doi:10.1130/0091-7613(2003)031<0439:caeite>2.0.co;2

Cited by 293 publications

(208 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The timeinterval covered by the TW-1 pollen sequence is not sufficiently long to derive firm links between solar forcing and vegetation changes, but the Tweini data strongly suggest that solar variability is a main cause behind middle to late Holocene precipitation changes over the Near East. Droughts in the eastern Mediterranean were also associated with cooling periods in the North Atlantic for the past 55 kyr (39). The impact of the North Atlantic oscillation on the modern Middle Eastern climate has been demonstrated (40), emphasizing the potential role of the North Atlantic variability to explain the Holocene climate changes in the Middle East.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Middle East coastal ecosystem response to middle-to-late Holocene abrupt climate changes

Kaniewski

Paulissen²,

Campo³

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The Holocene vegetation history of the northern coastal Arabian Peninsula is of long-standing interest, as this Mediterranean/ semiarid/arid region is known to be particularly sensitive to climatic changes. Detailed palynological data from an 800-cm alluvial sequence cored in the Jableh plain in northwest Syria have been used to reconstruct the vegetation dynamics in the coastal lowlands and the nearby Jabal an Nuşayriyah mountains for the period 2150 to 550 B.C. Corresponding with the 4.2 to 3.9 and 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP abrupt climate changes (ACCs), two large-scale shifts to a more arid climate have been recorded. These two ACCs had different impacts on the vegetation assemblages in coastal Syria. The 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP ACC is drier and lasted longer than the 4.2 to 3.9 cal kyr BP ACC, and is characterized by the development of a warm steppe pollen-derived biome (1100 -800 B.C.) and a peak of hot desert pollen-derived biome at 900 B.C. The 4.2 to 3.9 cal kyr BP ACC is characterized by a xerophytic woods and shrubs pollenderived biome ca. 2050 B.C. The impact of the 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP ACC on human occupation and cultural development is important along the Syrian coast with the destruction of Ugarit and the collapse of the Ugarit kingdom at ca. 1190 to 1185 B.C.pollen-derived biomes ͉ Tell Tweini ͉ Syria ͉ bond events

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Middle East coastal ecosystem response to middle-to-late Holocene abrupt climate changes

Kaniewski

Paulissen²,

Campo³

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Large-scale data from North Atlantic ice cores are useful for broadly classifying climate change in the eastern Adriatic. The sensitivity of the Mediterranean region to the North Atlantic Ocean has been established (Allen et al, 1999, Hughes et al, 2006 and some terrestrial proxies such as speleothem and lake-level records show North Atlantic climate events as far east as Israel (Bar-Matthews et al, 1999, Bartov et al, 2003. Davis et al (2003) provide reconstructions of the temperature across Europe for the last 12,000 years and suggest that differences in climate over the continent varied widely both seasonally and spatially, but that mean annual temperature increased almost linearly up until 7,800 years ago.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Birch

Linden

2018

Quaternary International

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The eastern Adriatic and western Balkans are key areas for assessing the environmental and population history of Europe during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. It has been argued that the Balkan region served as a Late Glacial refugium for humans, animals, and plants, much like Iberia and the Italian Peninsula and in contrast to the harsh conditions of Eastern and Central Europe. As post-glacial amelioration occurred and sea level rose, these regions to the north and west of the Balkan Mountains became forested and were populated by Mesolithic forager-fishers. Meanwhile, to the south, the domestication of plants and animals in the Near East began to cause large-scale environmental as well as lifestyle changes. Even as the Balkan Peninsula was a likely crossroads on the route for the spread of agriculture and herding from Southwest Asia into Europe, issues such as pre-Neolithic settlement, the discussion of human-environment interactions, and the role of climate events such as the 11.4, 9.3, and 8.2 ka cal BP in this critical landscape are often overlooked. Efforts to counter this challenge have been hampered by an apparent lack of data, so that the region hardly occurs in distribution maps. In part this is due to patchy research and a complicated political history, which have contributed to a fragmented archaeological and paleoecological record. Yet, as we show here, there is in fact plenty of evidence available for review. We present a survey of different proxies for environment and settlement throughout the Late Pleistocene and into the Early Holocene, combining radiocarbon data with zooarchaeological, lithic, and palynological records. By mapping this evidence, we are able to discuss the impact of climate change during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and consider the role of environment and landscape on human population distribution at this crossroads in place and time.

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“…During the late Pleistocene, the southern Levant experienced the following conditions: (1) high stands of Lake Lisan, the precursor of the Dead Sea (Bartov et al, 2003), indicating very wet conditions in northern Israel, northern Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and (2) intensive dust (fine sand and silt) deposition that formed the thick loess deposits in the northern Negev (e.g., Magaritz, 1986). This intensive dust deposition affected also areas farther north in Israel where late Pleistocene fine silts and clays were able to accumulate as Mediterranean soils.…”

Section: Discussion and Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Suspended dust over southeastern Mediterranean and its relation to atmospheric circulations

Dayan

Ziv

Shoob

et al. 2007

Intl Journal of Climatology

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143

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ABSTRACT:The Middle East deserts are often subjected to dust, which reduces horizontal visibility to 5 km, and sometimes even to <1 km. The present study examines the annual and inter-annual occurrences of dust events based on 37 years of visibility observations from Hazerim (near Beer Sheba) correlated with PM 10 dust concentration. The visibility data was converted to PM 10 dust concentration, using concurrent data for three years. We then analyse the linkage between dust and synoptic-to global-scale weather systems.The monthly data indicate that the dust season starts in October and ends in May, with a maximum in March. More than 89% of the total annual dust is accumulated between December and May, the 'high dust season'. The annual totals vary as much as an order of magnitude from year to year.The synoptic system that produces the majority of the dust over the northern Negev is the Cyprus Low, contributing 2/3 of both the total yearly dust yield and of the number of dust observations. This suggests that a positive relationship exists between the dust in the Negev and rainfall in north Israel, both of which are generated by Cyprus Lows. Indeed, a significant (at 0.05 level) correlation of +0.30 was found between the two. Correlation maps evidence that in dustrich years the cyclonic activity over the Mediterranean is abnormally high and in poor-dust years it is low. A highly significant negative correlation (−0.66) was found between the dust yield and the intensity of the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), which modulates the cyclonic activity over Europe and the northern Mediterranean. This may also imply that periods in which more dust accumulated as loess in the northern Negev may indicate the existence of negative NAO phase, and concurrently, warmer conditions over the Sahara, colder conditions over Europe and enhanced rainfall over the Mediterranean Basin.

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Catastrophic arid episodes in the Eastern Mediterranean linked with the North Atlantic Heinrich events

Cited by 293 publications

References 27 publications

Middle East coastal ecosystem response to middle-to-late Holocene abrupt climate changes

Middle East coastal ecosystem response to middle-to-late Holocene abrupt climate changes

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Suspended dust over southeastern Mediterranean and its relation to atmospheric circulations

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