DATE2016-05-30 10:17:59
IDABSTRACT20160530101759-0983
CONTACTnneboutcombourieu@mnhn.fr
PRESENTATIONPOSTER
INVITED0
IDSESSION3
TITLENORTHERN AND SOUTHERN COASTAL ECOSYSTEM RESPONSES TO THE HOLOCENE CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN
AUTHORSNathalie Combourieu-nebout (1), Julien Azuara (1), Sahbi Jouadi (1), Vincent Lebreton (1)
AFFILIATIONS
  1. Umr 7194 Cnrs-mnhn, Département De Préhistoire, Muséum National D'histoire Naturelle, Institut De Paléontologie Humaine, 1 Rue René Panhard F-75013 Paris (France)
ABSTRACTDecadal to millennial climate variability in Holocene records are today commonly related to changes in atmospheric circulation (NAO, MO, monsoon) driven by the combined influence of insolation forcing and fluctuations in the thermohaline circulation. However, assess the climate mechanisms underlying these processes remains a challenging task especially in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean climate is driven by both boreal and tropical climate influences and thus Mediterranean ecosystems are among the most sensitive and reactive to climate changes. Recent reviews show their rapid response to rapid events though, climate and environment discrepancies are highlighted between the north and south margins of the Mediterranean. Build a regional North-South Mediterranean scheme by using multiple records appears crucial to replace decadal to millennial changes observed in Mediterranean in the wide context of northern hemisphere climate system. High resolution vegetation records from Palavas lagoon (south France – 43°N) and Boujmel Sebkha (South Tunisia – 33°N) allow assessing the potential dissimilarities between north and south Mediterranean vegetation changes and climate variability during the last 8 kyr. Repetitive humid /arid fluctuations are depicted at a centennial scale in the two sites. In the north Mediterranean, Fagus (beech) develop during the humid events at the expense of deciduous Quercus (Oak). In the south Tunisia, Mediterranean xerophytes and aquatic plants progressively decline while herbaceous desert grows indicating increasing aridity. These abrupt events, sometimes asynchronously in north and south Mediterranean, match with some of the Mediterranean rapid climate changes (RCC) and/or north hemisphere climate events. Such oscillations between humid phases and arid episodes are close in time with some North Atlantic climate events time periods, addressing new perspectives to (i) typify late Holocene climatic oscillations and (ii) disentangle the mechanisms involved in Mediterranean climate variability.
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