Climate of the Past www.clim-past.net 1814-9324 1814-9332 5 4 2009 10.5194/cp-5-615-2009 http://www.clim-past.net/5/615/2009/ http://www.clim-past.net/5/615/2009/cp-5-615-2009.html http://www.clim-past.net/5/615/2009/cp-5-615-2009.pdf 615 632 2009-10-19 Terrestrial climate variability and seasonality changes in the Mediterranean region between 15 000 and 4000 years BP deduced from marine pollen records I. Dormoy isabelle.dormoy@univ-fcomte.fr O. Peyron N. Combourieu Nebout S. Goring U. Kotthoff M. Magny J. Pross Laboratory of Chrono-Environnement, UMR CNRS 6249, University of Franche-Comté, 16 route de Gray, 25030 Besançon, France Laboratory of Sciences of Climate and Environment, UMR 1572 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, domaine du CNRS, avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada Institute of Geosciences, University of Frankfurt, Altenhöferallee 1, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany Department of Geosciences, Hamburg University, Bundesstrasse 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany Pollen-based climate reconstructions were performed on two high-resolution pollen marines cores from the Alboran and Aegean Seas in order to unravel the climatic variability in the coastal settings of the Mediterranean region between 15 000 and 4000 years BP (the Lateglacial, and early to mid-Holocene). The quantitative climate reconstructions for the Alboran and Aegean Sea records focus mainly on the reconstruction of the seasonality changes (temperatures and precipitation), a crucial parameter in the Mediterranean region. This study is based on a multi-method approach comprising 3 methods: the Modern Analogues Technique (MAT), the recent Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling/Generalized Additive Model method (NMDS/GAM) and Partial Least Squares regression (PLS). The climate signal inferred from this comparative approach confirms that cold and dry conditions prevailed in the Mediterranean region during the Oldest and Younger Dryas periods, while temperate conditions prevailed during the Bølling/Allerød and the Holocene. Our records suggest a West/East gradient of decreasing precipitation across the Mediterranean region during the cooler Late-glacial and early Holocene periods, similar to present-day conditions. 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