Mediterranean climate’s future: a swing between droughts and downpours

From its olive groves to its coastal cities, the Mediterranean depends on a delicate balance of rain and sun, but climate change is tipping the scales.

Using a new and relatively simple data-driven model, a study published June 3 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research forecasts repeating drought and rain cycles in the central Mediterranean, offering a sharper picture of the region’s shifting water patterns. The findings pave the way for smarter, more adaptive strategies for facing growing climate volatility.

Long known for its sunny skies and temperate climate, the Mediterranean is now on the frontlines of climate change. The region is experiencing more frequent and intense climatic extremes, from droughts to downpours, prompting scientists to ramp up efforts to forecast future shifts in this culturally rich, agriculturally critical zone.

“While conventional Global Circulation Models have greatly advanced our understanding of climate dynamics, they don’t always capture key regional details, especially temperature variations that influence local rainfall patterns,” said Gianni Bellocchi, senior scientist at Université Clermont Auvergne in France and corresponding author of this study.

The team therefore aimed for a rather local lens into wetting and drying cycles in the central Mediterranean.

“We integrated climate forcings with historical data using a data-driven model with exogenous data, or DDMX,” said Nazzareno Diodato, first author and fellow scientist at the Met European Research Observatory - International Affiliates’ Program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

The researchers analyzed more than a century’s worth of historical weather data, dating back to 1884, with a focus on the Standardized Precipitation Index, a key indicator that tracks unusual wet or dry conditions over six-month intervals. Their DDMX model combines large-scale climate drivers with regional sea-level pressure data to improve predictive accuracy.

When validated against observations from 1993 to 2022, the model showed strong performance, with a correlation coefficient of 0.58 and a root mean square error of 0.621, confirming its reliability.

“Our DDMX approach offers a simpler methodology and complementary alternative to conventional Global Circulation Models for understanding and forecasting climate-related phenomena,” said Rajib Maity, co-author and researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

The model projects a decade-long drying period from 2045 to 2054, followed by a wetter phase —capturing the alternating wet–dry cycles that are emerging as a dominant signature of climate change in the region. These findings assist with water resource planning, agriculture, and infrastructure investment.

The trio plans to further refine and expand the DDMX model across different Mediterranean sub-regions and hydroclimate scenarios. They also aim to integrate more diverse datasets, explore new machine learning architectures, and quantify the uncertainty in forecasts more rigorously.

“Ultimately, we hope that our work will lead to more effective resilience planning and sustainable water management strategies in regions such as the Mediterranean that are particularly vulnerable to evolving climate patterns,” Bellocchi said.