Climate Insights from Masías and Churches in the Spanish Mediterranean (MEDIRINGS)

Abstract

MEDIRINGS is a pioneering project that unlocks the dendrochronological potential of historical timber preserved in the architectural heritage of the Mediterranean sector of the Iberian Range. Through a coordinated sampling campaign, the project studies structural wood from traditional farmhouses (masías), towers, mills, churches, and other historic buildings, whose beams preserve valuable records of past climate variability.

The main goal of MEDIRINGS is to build the first millennium-long tree-ring chronology for the Iberian Peninsula with a strong sensitivity to annual precipitation. This represents a major advance in European paleoclimatology, as existing long chronologies are largely temperature-driven and restricted to high-elevation regions. By focusing on deadwood from lowland and mid-altitude Mediterranean environments, the project captures a rainfall signal directly linked to water availability in one of Europe’s most climate-stressed regions.

The resulting chronology will provide a robust, well-dated baseline to place current and future rainfall trends into a long-term perspective, offering new insights into natural precipitation variability under Mediterranean climate conditions.