The Mediterranean climate: An overview of the main characteristics and issues

Lionello, Piero; Malanotte‐Rizzoli, Paola; Boscolo, Roberta; Alpert, Pinhas; Artale, V.; Li, L; Luterbacher, Jürg; May, Wilhelm; Trigo, Ricardo M.; Tsimplis, Michael; Ulbrich, Uwe; Xoplaki, Elena

doi:10.1016/s1571-9197(06)80003-0

Cited by 415 publications

(354 citation statements)

References 106 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

336

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Movement of circulation systems such as the polar front through time could lead to dramatic changes in regional seasonality, with significant implications for climate more generally. For example, the evaporative balance of the Mediterranean is important for ocean circulation (Rogerson et al, 2010), and atmospheric teleconnections exist between the Mediterranean region, North Atlantic (Lionello et al, 2006) and Asian monsoon (Raicich et al, 2003). Changes in seasonality would also have profound implications for human society in the western Mediterranean.…”

Section: Study Site and Regional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased seasonality in the Western Mediterranean during the last glacial from limpet shell geochemistry

Ferguson

Henderson

et al. 2011

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Editor: P. DeMenocalKeywords: mollusc seasonality Gibraltar palaeoclimate oxygen isotopesThe seasonal cycle is a fundamental aspect of climate, with a significant influence on mean climate and on human societies. Assessing seasonality in different climate states is therefore important but, outside the tropics, very few palaeoclimate records with seasonal resolution exist and there are currently no glacial-age seasonal-resolution sea-surface-temperature (SST) records at mid to high latitudes. Here we show that both Mg/Ca and oxygen isotope (δ 18 O) ratios in modern limpet (Patella) shells record the seasonal range of SST in the western Mediterranean -a region particularly susceptible to seasonal change. Analysis of a suite of fossil limpet shells from Gibraltar shows that SST seasonality was greater during the last glacial by~2°C as a result of greater winter cooling. These extra-tropical seasonal-resolution SST records for the last glacial suggest that the presence of large ice-sheets in the northern hemisphere enhances winter cooling. This result also indicates that seasonality in the Mediterranean is not well-represented in most palaeoclimate models, which typically show little change in seasonal amplitude, and provides a new test for the accuracy of climate models.

show abstract

Section: Study Site and Regional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased seasonality in the Western Mediterranean during the last glacial from limpet shell geochemistry

Ferguson

Henderson

et al. 2011

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Those sources, combined with complex interactions between atmospheric dynamics, geographical features and land-sea temperature gradients (Lionello et al, 2006), lead to an European aerosol load maximum (Textor et al, 2006;Putaud et al, 2010). Meteorological conditions hold a key role in the development of aerosol-related pollution events (Millán et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Source contributions to 2012 summertime aerosols in the Euro-Mediterranean region

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. In the Mediterranean area, aerosols may originate from anthropogenic or natural emissions (biogenic, mineral dust, fire and sea salt) before undergoing complex chemistry. In case of a huge pollution event, it is important to know whether European pollution limits are exceeded and, if so, whether the pollution is due to anthropogenic or natural sources. In this study, the relative contribution of emissions to surface PM 10 , surface PM 2.5 and total aerosol optical depth (AOD) is quantified. For Europe and the Mediterranean regions and during the summer of 2012, the WRF and CHIMERE models are used to perform a sensitivity analysis on a 50 km resolution domain (from −10 • W to 40 • E and from 30 • N to 55 • N): one simulation with all sources (reference) and all others with one source removed. The reference simulation is compared to data from the AirBase network and two ChArMEx stations, and from the AERONET network and the MODIS satellite instrument, to quantify the ability of the model to reproduce the observations. It is shown that the correlation ranges from 0.19 to 0.57 for surface particulate matter and from 0.35 to 0.75 for AOD. For the summer of 2012, the model shows that the region is mainly influenced by aerosols due to mineral dust and anthropogenic emissions (62 and 19 %, respectively, of total surface PM 10 and 17 and 52 % of total surface PM 2.5 ). The western part of the Mediterranean is strongly influenced by mineral dust emissions (86 % for surface PM 10 and 44 % for PM 2.5 ), while anthropogenic emissions dominate in the northern Mediterranean basin (up to 75 % for PM 2.5 ). Fire emissions are more sporadic but may represent 20 % of surface PM 2.5 , on average, during the period near local sources. Sea salt mainly contributes for coastal sites (up to 29 %) and biogenic emissions mainly in central Europe (up to 20 %).The same analysis was undertaken for the number of daily exceedances of the European Union limit of 50 µg m −3 for PM 10 (over the stations), and for the number of daily exceedances of the WHO recommendation for PM 2.5 (25 µg m −3 ), over the western part of Europe and the central north. This number is generally overestimated by the model, particularly in the northern part of the domain, but exceedances are captured at the right time. Optimized contributions are computed with the observations, by subtracting the background bias at each station and the specific peak biases from the considered sources. These optimized contributions show that if natural sources such as mineral dust and fire events are particularly difficult to estimate, they were responsible exclusively for 35.9 and 0.7 %, respectively, of the exceedances for PM 10 during the summer of 2012. The PM 25 recommendation of 25 µg m −3 is exceeded in 21.1 % of the cases because of anthropogenic sources exclusively and in 0.02 % because of fires. The other exceedances are induced by a mixed contribution between mainly mineral dust (49.5-67 % for PM 10 exceedance contributions, 4.4-13.8 % for PM 2.5 ), anthropogenic so...

show abstract

“…The mountainous terrain (highest pick in the Alps with a maximum high of 4,800m) around the Mediterranean basin ( Figure 1) has a significant impact on the climate and meteorology in the region. Moreover, the complex land-sea distribution with many islands, peninsulas and inner seas around the basin [7], makes the region an interesting area in terms of meteorology due that they determine important consequences in the atmospheric circulation and they are the reason for many sub regional and mesoscale characteristics. The Mediterranean region is a very important area in many sectors and has a huge impact on human life, natural process and available water for different purposes [3], especially for the areas in Africa, Asia and Europe [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

<span>The Mediterranean moisture supply in the genesis of climatological and extreme monthly continental precipitation</span>

Ciric

Nieto

Losada

et al. 2017

Proceedings of First International Electronic Conference on the Hydrological Cycle

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The moisture transport from its sources to the continents is one of the most relevant topics in the hydrology, and its role in extremes events is crucial to understand several processes in the Earth, as intense precipitations and/or flooding. Using the global precipitation dataset from the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) from 1980 to 2015, a monthly precipitation climatology was done over the area of the Mediterranean Sea, checking grid by grid which year exhibits the maximum precipitation. As is well known, the Mediterranean Basin is a clear source of moisture for the surrounding areas. To link this source of moisture with the precipitation over it surroundings, in this work we have made use of the Lagrangian dispersion model FLEXPART to track, in its forward mode, those particles that monthly leave the Mediterranean Basin and we have calculated the loss of moisture (E-P<0) modeled by FLEXPART over the continental region. The aim of this study is to calculate the monthly climatological percentage of the Mediterranean contribution grid by grid, and the changes of this contribution for extreme monthly precipitation, checking the importance of this sea source of moisture during the maxima peaks of precipitation. In general terms, the spatial pattern of the contribution of the Mediterranean source to the precipitation does not differ a lot between those years with higher precipitation and the climatology; however there any European regions where the Mediterranean is not an important source for climatological precipitation but it is a significant source for extreme precipitation years.

show abstract

The Mediterranean climate: An overview of the main characteristics and issues

Cited by 415 publications

References 106 publications

Increased seasonality in the Western Mediterranean during the last glacial from limpet shell geochemistry

Increased seasonality in the Western Mediterranean during the last glacial from limpet shell geochemistry

Source contributions to 2012 summertime aerosols in the Euro-Mediterranean region

<span>The Mediterranean moisture supply in the genesis of climatological and extreme monthly continental precipitation</span>

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About