Regional precipitation trends since 1500 CE reconstructed from calcite sublayers of a varved Mediterranean lake record (Central Pyrenees)

Abstract

The Mediterranean region is expected to be highly impacted by global warming, although the uncertainty of future scenarios, particularly about precipitation patterns remains quite large. To better predict shifts in its current climate system and to test models, more regional climate records are needed spanning longer than the instrumental period. Here we provide a high-resolution reconstruction of autumn precipitation for the Central Pyrenees since 1500 CE based on annual calcite sublayer widths from Montcortès Lake (Central southern Pyrenees) varved sediments. The 500-yr calcite data series were detrended and calibrated with instrumental climate records by applying correlations and cross-correlations to regional precipitation anomalies. The highest relationships were obtained between a composite calcite series and autumn precipitation anomalies for the complete calibration period (1900-2002) and for the two halves of the full period. Applied statistical tests were significant, evidencing that the climatic signal could be reconstructed. The reconstructed precipitation anomalies show interdecadal shifts, and rainfall decrease within the coldest period of the LIA and during the second half of the 20th century, probably associated to current Global Warming. Neither increasing nor decreasing linear trends or periods of extreme precipitation events were identified. Our results are coherent with other palaeohydrological reconstructions for the northern Iberian Peninsula. Correlations between the predicted autumn precipitation and the main teleconnections -NAO, ENSO, and WEMO- were weak, although a potential relationship with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) pattern is suggested. The obtained reconstruction provides the first estimations of regional autumn precipitation shifts in the Central Pyrenees and is one of the few reconstructions that cover annual-to-century scale climate variability of precipitation in the Mediterranean region from the end of the Litte Ice Age (LIA) to the current period of Global Warming.