DATE2019-01-08 12:44:22
IDABSTRACT2014/104
CONTACTyigitbasioglu@gmail.com
PRESENTATIONPOSTER
INVITED0
IDSESSION1
TITLEA 600 YEAR-LONG DROUGHT INDEX FOR CENTRAL ANATOLIA
AUTHORSHakan Yigitbasioglu (1)|Jonathan R. Dean (2)|Warren J. Eastwood (3)|Neil Roberts - Jessie Woodbridge (4)|Matthew D. Jones (5)|Samantha L. Allcock (6)|Çetin Senkul (4,7)|Murat Türkes (8)
AFFILIATIONS
  1. Language and History-Geography Faculty, Ankara, Turkey
  2. NERC, Birmingham, United Kingdom
  3. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Birmingham, United Kingdom
  4. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth, United Kingdom
  5. School of Geography, Nottingham, United Kingdom
  6. Bournemouth University, Dorset, United Kingdom
  7. Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey
  8. METU, Ankara, Turkey
ABSTRACTIn the context of a changing global climate, it is important to understand Mediterranean hydro-climatic variability over timescales longer than those that can be obtained from direct monitoring and observations (i.e. >100 years). The long-term frequency, duration and intensity of drought periods are especially significant for rain-fed agriculture, water supply, and other key human needs. We have reconstructed a decadal-average drought index (P/E) from the annually-laminated lake sediment record of Nar lake in Cappadocia, central Anatolia from 1400 CE to the present-day. Oxygen isotopes of carbonates and other climate proxies from individual lake varves have been calibrated against temperature, precipitation, etc., from four central Anatolian meteorological stations for the last ~70 years to derive a regional drought index. Analysis of historical meteorological data shows that trends are likely to be representative of the Central Anatolian Climate Region as a whole (Türkes, 2003, In: Bolle H.-J. (ed.), Mediterranean Climate – Variability and Trends. Springer-Verlag, pp. 181–213.). Because of the multi-year residence time of the lake water, sedimentary proxy data from Nar represent a weighted 8-year P/E average, and can therefore identify past droughts of decadal or longer duration, but not year-to-year variations (Jones et al., J. Paleolim., 2005, 34: 391-411). We have confirmed this relationship by annual monitoring of Nar lake since 1998, a time period which has included a climate-related fall in lake level, increase in salinity and rise in d18O. Our “calibration in time” has been applied to d18O analyses from Nar lake sediment cores (Jones et al., Geology, 2006, 34: 361-4), to reveal drought events during the Little Ice Age and modern times. These include major drought phases during the early 15th century, at the end of the 16th century coincident with the Celali rebellion (White, 2011, The climate of rebellion in the early modern Ottoman empire), and also in the mid-late 19th century.
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