Dead Sea lake level for the last 237 ka reconstructed with deep core halite fluid inclusions and marginal sediments

The rain regime in the Eastern Mediterranean is primarily controlled by Mediterranean winter cyclonic systems. The lake level of the Dead Sea responds sensitively to hydrological changes, and can be used to track the evolution of the Mediterranean hydroclimate during the late Quaternary. However, lake level reconstructions beyond 70 ka are limited by a lack of paleoshorelines and dating methodologies. Here, we reconstruct the Dead Sea lake level back to 237 ka using measurements of brine density from halite fluid inclusions of the deep ICDP core 5017-1-A. We combine our mass balance-based reconstruction with an age reevaluation of published sequence stratigraphy-based lake levels, by tying their chronology to the ICDP core. The lake levels obtained with the two different methods compare very well, within better than 10 m. Combined with a compilation of published paleoshorelines for the last 70 ka, our reconstruction covers three glacial-interglacial cycles.