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T9
Palaeolimnological evidence for the Medieval Warm Period in the northeastern
Mediterranean?
Jane M. Reed 1 *, Aleksandra Cvetkoska 2 , Alexander Francke 3 , Jack H. Lacey 4 , Melanie J.
Leng 4,5 , , Zlatko Levkov 2 , Bernd Wagner 3 , Xiaosen Zhang 1
1 Dept. of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, University of Hull, Hull
2 Institute of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia 3 Institute of Geology
and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
4 Dept. of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester
5 NERC Isotope Geosciences Lab, British Geological Survey, Nottingham
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP, centred on ca. 950 AD) is recognised as a phase of
marked Holocene environmental change in palaeoenvironmental records across the
Mediterranean. Its signature is complex, however, with major differences in patterns of
temperature and precipitation change inferred across the region. Ancient Lake Ohrid
(Macedonia/Albania) is a site of global importance for palaeoclimate research. As part of
the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) project, SCOPSCO,
palaeolimnological studies of glacial-interglacial climate change have demonstrated the
strong climatic response of diatoms and stable isotopes. Here, we present proxy data for
hydrological change during the Late Holocene from Ohrid core Lz1120, in comparison with
extant data from other Holocene sequences in Ohrid (Reed et al. 2010) and Prespa
(Cvetkoska et al., submitted). Evidence for a prolonged low lake-level phase in both lakes
at ca. 1 ka is compared with other sites in the region to assess whether this represents a
climatic response to enhanced MWP aridity, or whether it is a function of catchmentspecific
drivers.
Keywords: Medieval Warm Period; Mediterranean; Ohrid; palaeolimnology; diatoms;
stable isotopes
Cvetkoska, A., Levkov, Z., Reed, J.M., Wagner, B. (submitted). Late glacial to Holocene climate
change and human impact in the Mediterranean: the last ca. 17 ka diatom record of Lake Prespa
(Macedonia/Albania/Greece). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
Reed J. M., Cvetkoska A., Levkov Z., Vogel H. & Wagner B. (2010). The last glacial-interglacial cycle in
Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania): testing diatom response to climate. Biogeosciences 7, 3083-3094