Discovering the anomalously cold Mediterranean winters during the Maunder minimum

作者：Diodato Nazzareno; Bellocchi Gianni^*

来源：The Holocene, 2012, 22(5): 589-596.

DOI：10.1177/0959683611427336

• documentary-proxy data
• 'Little Ice Age'
• 'Maunder minimum'
• 'Mediterranean Sub-regional Area'
• temperature reconstruction
• winter temperatures

This work presents an attempt to reconstruct the Mediterranean Italy climate across one of the coldest interval (AD 1645-1715) of the 'Little Ice Age' (LIA), characterized by a prolonged episode of low solar acitivty known as 'Maunder minimum' (MM). LIA was characterized by marked climatic variability over this part of southern Europe, particularly during the MM. Using a model based on adding subregional details to regional-scale reconstruction, we estimated for this period a mean winter temperature of similar to 1 degrees C lower than in the baseline period 1961-1990 (similar to 8 degrees C), and the anomaly further lowered down to about -4 degrees C in the winter of 1683-1684. In addition, the interannual variability of extreme low temperatures makes the MM an outstanding climatic period. There is also some consistency of the empirical evidence with the modelling results that, for high-resolution wintertime seasonal reconstruction, central Mediterranean Sub-regional Area shows a colder climate than that represented by coarser simulation of European temperatures during the LIA period.

• 出版日期2012-5