Large scale moisture flux characteristics of the mediterranean basin and their relationships with drier and wetter climate conditions

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 3381-3401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinan Şahin ◽  
Murat Türkeş ◽  
Sheng-Hung Wang ◽  
David Hannah ◽  
Warren Eastwood
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Moisture Flux ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

scholarly journals Saharan Hot and Dry Sirocco Winds Drive Extreme Fire Events in Mediterranean Tunisia (North Africa)

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiraz Belhadj-Khedher ◽  
Taoufik El-Melki ◽  
Florent Mouillot
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Fire Hazard ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Extreme Fire

With hot and dry summers, the Mediterranean basin is affected by recurrent fires. While drought is the major driver of the seasonal and inter-annual fire distribution in its northern and mildest climate conditions, some extreme fire events are also linked to extreme winds or heat waves. The southern part of the Mediterranean basin is located at the driest range of the Mediterranean bioclimate and is influenced by Saharan atmospheric circulations, leading to extreme hot and dry episodes, called Sirocco, and potentially acting as a major contributor to fire hazard. The recently created fire database for Tunisia was used to investigate the ±10-day pre- and post-fire timeframe of daily weather conditions associated with fire events over the 1985–2006 period. Positive anomalies in minimum and maximum temperatures, negative anomalies in air relative humidity, and a preferential south-eastern wind during fire events were identified, which were characteristic of Sirocco winds. +7 °C anomalies in air temperature and −30% in relative air humidity were the critical thresholds for the most extreme fire conditions. In addition, meteorological anomalies started two days before fire events and lasted for three days after for large fires >400 ha, which suggests that the duration of the Sirocco event is linked with fire duration and final fire size. Lastly, the yearly number of intense Sirocco events better explained the inter-annual variability of burned area over the 1950–2006 period than summer drought based on Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) indices.

scholarly journals The origin and spread of olive cultivation in the Mediterranean Basin: The fossil pollen evidence

The Holocene ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 902-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafna Langgut ◽  
Rachid Cheddadi ◽  
Josѐ Sebastián Carrión ◽  
Mark Cavanagh ◽  
Daniele Colombaroli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fossil Pollen ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Secondary Products ◽  
Early Management ◽  
Olive Cultivation ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Pollen Records

Olive ( Olea europaea L.) was one of the most important fruit trees in the ancient Mediterranean region and a founder species of horticulture in the Mediterranean Basin. Different views have been expressed regarding the geographical origins and timing of olive cultivation. Since genetic studies and macro-botanical remains point in different directions, we turn to another proxy – the palynological evidence. This study uses pollen records to shed new light on the history of olive cultivation and large-scale olive management. We employ a fossil pollen dataset composed of high-resolution pollen records obtained across the Mediterranean Basin covering most of the Holocene. Human activity is indicated when Olea pollen percentages rise fairly suddenly, are not accompanied by an increase of other Mediterranean sclerophyllous trees, and when the rise occurs in combination with consistent archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence. Based on these criteria, our results show that the southern Levant served as the locus of primary olive cultivation as early as ~6500 years BP (yBP), and that a later, early/mid 6th millennium BP cultivation process occurred in the Aegean (Crete) – whether as an independent large-scale management event or as a result of knowledge and/or seedling transfer from the southern Levant. Thus, the early management of olive trees corresponds to the establishment of the Mediterranean village economy and the completion of the ‘secondary products revolution’, rather than urbanization or state formation. From these two areas of origin, the southern Levant and the Aegean olive cultivation spread across the Mediterranean, with the beginning of olive horticulture in the northern Levant dated to ~4800 yBP. In Anatolia, large-scale olive horticulture was palynologically recorded by ~3200 yBP, in mainland Italy at ~3400 yBP, and in the Iberian Peninsula at mid/late 3rd millennium BP.

scholarly journals Climatic Uncertainty in the Mediterranean Basin and Its Possible Relevance to Important Economic Sectors

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Haim Kutiel
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Large Variability ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

The Mediterranean Basin is among the densest populated regions of the world with forecasts for a further population increase in the coming decades. Agriculture and tourism are two main economic activities of this region. Both activities depend highly on climate and weather conditions. Climate and weather in turn, present a large variability both in space and in time which results in different uncertainty types. Any change in weather and or climate conditions in the coming decades due to climate change may increase this uncertainty. Temporal uncertainty is discussed in detail and different ways of how to exhibit it are presented with examples from various locations in the Mediterranean basin. Forecasted increased uncertainty may in turn increase future challenges for long term planning and managing of agriculture and tourism in that part of the world.

Italian network of four permanent observatories: implementation of background data selection (BaDSfit) and 5-year analysis of the atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Trisolino ◽  
Alcide di Sarra ◽  
Damiano Sferlazzo ◽  
Salvatore Piacentino ◽  
Francesco Monteleone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Data Selection ◽  
Background Data ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

<p>The Mediterranean basin is considered a global hot-spot region for climate change and air-quality. CO<sub>2</sub> is the single most-important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere, accounting approximatively for ∼63% of the anthropogenic radiative forcing by long-lived GHG. According to Le Quérée et al. (2018), the increasing of the atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> mixing ratios in the global atmosphere is driven by fossil fuel and cement production.<br>In order to reduce GHG emissions and taking into account the needs for economy and society development, schemes of regulation and emission trading have been adopted at international, national, and city levels. The implementation of these regulation, to achieve the goal successfully, needs scientific evidence and information provided on consistent datasets. In the last year, efforts are dedicated to set up harmonized reference networks at difference scales (WMO/GAW, AGAGE, ICOS).<br>In this work, we analysed a set of continuous long-term measurements of CO<sub>2</sub> carried out at 4 atmospheric observatories in Italy belonging to the WMO/GAW network and spanning from the Alpine region to central Mediterranean Sea: Plateau Rosa (western Italian Alps, 3480 m a.s.l.), Mt. Cimone (northern Apennines, 2165 m a.s.l.), Capo Granitola (southern Sicily coastline) and Lampedusa Island. Mt. Cimone is also a “class-2” ICOS station, while Plateau Rosa and Lampedusa are in the labelling process. Starting time of GHG observations range from 1979 for Mt. Cimone to 2015 for Capo Granitola. Due to their different locations and ecosystems, they provide useful hints to investigate CO<sub>2</sub> variability on different latitudinal and altitudinal ranges in the Mediterranean basin and to study of natural and anthropogenic-related processes able to affect the observed variability.<br>The study addresses primarily differences in daily and seasonal cycles at the different sites, and implemented a procedure to identify background conditions called BaDSfit (Background Data Selection for Italian stations; Trisolino et al., submitted). This methodology was originally used at Plateau Rosa station (Apadula, 2019) and it is based on the Mauna Loa data selection method (Tans and Thoning, 2008). BaDSfit consist of three steps and an optimization of the procedure was carried out with a sensitivity study.  Marked differences among the daily cycles at the various sites exist. The effect of the data selection on the seasonal and diurnal cycle and long-term evolution is investigated. The BaDSfit lead to a more coherent diurnal and seasonal evolution of the different datasets, is able to identify background condition and allows the separation of local/regional scale from large scale phenomena in the CO<sub>2</sub> time series.</p>

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