noaa-recon-23010 Caucasus 250 Year May-June Precipitation Reconstruction Martin-Benito, D.; Ummenhofer, C.C.; Köse, N.; Güner, H.T.; Pederson, N. Caucasus 250 Year May-June Precipitation Reconstruction 2017-10-31 NCDC-Paleoclimatology ONLINE Files Pending https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/23010 Investigator D. Martin-Benito Investigator C.C. Ummenhofer Investigator N. Köse Investigator H.T. Güner Investigator N. Pederson earth science paleoclimate climate reconstructions|tree ring age,null,null,year Common Era,null,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,null,N,null earth science paleoclimate climate reconstructions|tree ring precipitation,ring width,null,millimeter,May-Jun,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,null,N,May-June precipitation sum earth science paleoclimate reconstructions precipitation geoscientificInformation Precipitation Reconstruction 1752 AD 2001 AD 198 cal yr BP -51 cal yr BP Complete 38 45 38 48 Continent Asia Western Asia Caucasus>LATITUDE >LONGITUDE None Please cite original publication, online resource, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, title, online resource, and date accessed. The appearance of external links associated with a dataset does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the Department of Commerce/NOAA does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Commerce/NOAA Web site. English DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data DATA Center Contact Bruce Bauer bruce.a.bauer@noaa.gov paleo@noaa.gov 303-497-6280 303-497-6513

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Boulder CO 80305-3328 USA online ASCII Dario Martin-Benito, Caroline C. Ummenhofer, Nesibe Köse, Hüseyin Tuncay Güner, Neil Pederson 2016 Climate Dynamics 47 9-10 3011-3027 10.1007/s00382-016-3010-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-016-3010-1

The Caucasus region experiences recurrent droughts that affect natural vegetation and the agriculture-based economies of several countries. Because meteorological records are in general scarce and of short timespan, little is known about the magnitude and frequency of past climate variability. Despite the recent increase of climate reconstructions for parts of Eurasia, no study has focused on past hydroclimate variability in the Caucasus. Here, we use a multispecies network of tree-ring width chronologies from the Lesser Caucasus to develop the first precipitation reconstruction for the region back to 1752 CE. Despite the high annual precipitation in the region, our reconstruction accounted for 51.2% of the variability in May-June precipitation from 1930 to 2001. In comparison with reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean, our new reconstruction revealed important and distinct drought periods and pluvials. Previous winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and spring East Atlantic/Western Russia (EA/WR) and North Sea Caspian patterns are likely key drivers of May-June precipitation in the Caucasus and Anatolia. NAO appeared to negatively affect rainfall low-frequency variability while effects of EA/WR were more apparent at the interannual timescales. We also show a potential positive effect of Black Sea surface temperatures on May-June precipitation. In the Caucasus, May-June represents the period of major water supply in semi-arid areas and the period with the highest potential of water scarcity in mesic areas. It is also a period of potential catastrophic flood events. Thus, changes to the precipitation regime during this season will be critical to both human and natural systems of the Caucasus region. STUDY NOTES: May-June precipitation sum reconstruction in the Caucasus since 1752, based on 9 (nine) tree-ring width chronologies from the Western Caucasus in Turkey and the Republic of Georgia. The elevation of the tree-ring sites ranges between 700 and 2100 m asl. Five of the tree-ring width chronologies used were obtained from the International Tree Ring Data Bank (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/tree-ring) with the following site codes: GEOR004, GEOR005, GEOR008, GEOR010, TURK022

GET DATA https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/reconstructions/asia/caucasus2016precip.txt Formatted Text Data File; Caucasus May-June Precipitation Reconstruction USA/NOAA DIF Version 9.8.4 2018-12-11 2018-12-11