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Publisher Summary This chapter discusses a necessary task for assessing to which degree the industrial period is unusual against the background of pre-industrial climate variability. It is the reconstruction and interpretation of temporal and spatial patterns of climate in earlier centuries. There are distinct differences in the temporal resolution among the various proxies. Some of the proxy records are annually or even higher resolved and hence record year-by-year patterns of climate in past centuries. Several of the temperature reconstructions reveal that the late twentieth century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric scales and is explained by anthropogenic, greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. The chapter discusses the availability and potential of long, homogenized instrumental data, documentary, and natural proxies to reconstruct aspects of past climate at local- to regional-scales within the larger Mediterranean area, which includes climate extremes and the incidence of natural disasters. The chapter describes the role of external forcing, including natural and anthropogenic influences, and natural, internal variability in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system at subcontinental scale.

Publisher Summary The Mediterranean climate is under the influence of both tropical and mid-latitude climate dynamics, being directly affected by continental and maritime air masses with significant origin differences. The peak of the winter season occurs between December and February, when the mid-latitude cyclone belt has usually reached its southernmost position. However, spring and autumn also contribute to a significant amount of precipitation. Being located at the southern limit of the North Atlantic storm tracks; the Mediterranean region is particularly sensitive to interannual shifts in the trajectories of mid-latitude cyclones that can lead to the remarkable anomalies of precipitation and, to a lesser extent, of temperature. Storm-track variability impacts primarily the western Mediterranean, but it hasa signature clearly detected in the eastern Mediterranean as well. The complex orography that characterizes most regions surrounding the Mediterranean basin can modulate and even distort climate anomaly patterns that otherwise would be geographically much more homogenous. Lack of water in winter and spring reflects in the crop yield. However, too much water in winter is harmful by drowning the seeds and retarding root development. The variability of precipitation plays a crucial role in the management of regional agriculture, in environment, in water resources and ecosystems, as well as social development and behavior.