Increased seasonality in Middle East temperatures during the last interglacial period

Thomas Felis (), Gerrit Lohmann, Henning Kuhnert, Stephan J. Lorenz, Denis Scholz, Jürgen Pätzold, Saber A. Al-Rousan and Salim M. Al-Moghrabi
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Thomas Felis: Universität Bremen
Gerrit Lohmann: Universität Bremen
Henning Kuhnert: Universität Bremen
Stephan J. Lorenz: Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Modelle & Daten
Denis Scholz: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jürgen Pätzold: Universität Bremen
Saber A. Al-Rousan: University of Jordan & Yarmouk University
Salim M. Al-Moghrabi: University of Jordan & Yarmouk University

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6988, 164-168

Abstract: Abstract The last interglacial period (about 125,000 years ago) is thought to have been at least as warm as the present climate1. Owing to changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, it is thought that insolation in the Northern Hemisphere varied more strongly than today on seasonal timescales2, which would have led to corresponding changes in the seasonal temperature cycle3. Here we present seasonally resolved proxy records using corals from the northernmost Red Sea, which record climate during the last interglacial period, the late Holocene epoch and the present. We find an increased seasonality in the temperature recorded in the last interglacial coral. Today, climate in the northern Red Sea is sensitive to the North Atlantic Oscillation4,5, a climate oscillation that strongly influences winter temperatures and precipitation in the North Atlantic region. From our coral records and simulations with a coupled atmosphere–ocean circulation model, we conclude that a tendency towards the high-index state of the North Atlantic Oscillation during the last interglacial period, which is consistent with European proxy records6,7,8, contributed to the larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle in the Middle East.

Date: 2004
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DOI: 10.1038/nature02546

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