MEDITERRANEAN CLIMATE VARIABILITY DOCUMENTED IN OXYGEN ISOTOPE RECORDS FROM NORTHERN RED SEA CORALS

Annually banded reef corals from the northern Red Sea provide a high-resolution archive of past climate variations at the southeastern rim of the Mediterranean basin. Subseasonally resolved oxygen isotope records derived from the carbonate skeletons of these massive colonies robustly document seasonality and interannual to decadal climate variability. These proxy records of climate, supported by analyses of instrumental data and model simulations, reveal the prominent role of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) in controlling eastern Mediterranean/Middle East climate on seasonal, interannual to decadal and orbital timescales, most pronounced during winter. Variability at interannual periods of 5-6 years evident in the coral records is indicative of AO/NAO-like atmospheric variability over the Northern Hemisphere and its influence on eastern Mediterranean/Middle East climate during the last centuries, the late Holocene and the last interglacial period. The coral oxygen isotope records, which are recording temperature and surface evaporation in the northern Red Sea, are linked via AO/NAO-controlled atmospheric circulation changes to variations in temperature and precipitation throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East region.