RESUMO
Mediterranean climates are characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Previous studies suggest that over the last 1.36 Myr, Mediterranean winter rainfalls were in phase with the African monsoon. Here we present a high-resolution terrestrial and marine dataset for the Marine Isotope Stage 17 interglacial (Middle Pleistocene) from Southern Italy, showing that precipitation rates and regimes in the central Mediterranean varied independently of the monsoon system. Specifically, events of extreme summer precipitation were promoted by increased regional insolation rates and/or extratropical cyclones, and their magnitude was further enhanced by the advection of cool and humid North Atlantic air during stadials. Our findings provide new information on the short- to mid-term natural hydroclimatic variability of the Mediterranean basin, and offer new critical insights on land-ocean interactions at the regional scale by complementing previous analyses on the displacement of storm tracks toward southern Europe.
RESUMO
Ostracod faunal turnover and oxygen isotope data (foraminifera) along the Valle di Manche (VdM) section are herein compiled. Specifically, the material reported in this work includes quantitative palaeoecological data and patterns of ostracod fauna framed within a high-resolution oxygen isotope stratigraphy (δ18O) from Uvigerina peregrina. In addition, the multivariate ostracod faunal stratigraphic trend (nMDS axis-1 sample score) is calibrated using bathymetric distributions of extant molluscs sampled from the same stratigraphic intervals along the VdM section. Data and analyses support the research article "Dynamics of benthic marine communities across the Early-Middle Pleistocene boundary in the Mediterranean region (Valle di Manche, Southern Italy): biotic and stratigraphic implications" Rossi et al. [1].
