Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T08:54:57.414Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Future climate of the Middle East

from Part I - Past, present and future climate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

By
Emily Black ,
David Brayshaw ,
Julia Slingo  and
Brian Hoskins
Edited by
Steven Mithen  and
Emily Black
Emily Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
David Brayshaw
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Julia Slingo
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Brian Hoskins
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Steven Mithen
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Emily Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT

A survey of publicly available data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that the Middle East will become significantly drier as greenhouse gas levels rise – with potentially devastating consequences. Simulating the climate of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East is, however, a tough challenge for climate models and those results should be interpreted with caution. The cyclones which migrate from west to east across the Mediterranean in winter and early spring, and which deliver much of the annual precipitation to the Middle East, are not well resolved by global climate models of the type included in the IPCC archive. Furthermore, the local climate is modified by coastlines and mountains throughout the region. For these reasons we provide a supplement to the IPCC results with simulations from a regional climate model. As in the global models, the regional model projects that, under an A2 (business-as-usual) scenario, precipitation will decrease significantly in the Middle East. Further investigation of the daily statistics of the weather, along with tracking of weather systems in the present day and future climate scenarios, suggest that the dominant mechanism for these changes is a reduction in the strength of the Mediterranean storm track. The Mediterranean storm track is fairly well simulated by the regional climate model, increasing confidence in this projection. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Water, Life and Civilisation
Climate, Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley
 , pp. 51 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpert, P., Krichak, S., Shafir, H., Haim, D. and Osentinsky, I. (2008) Climatic trends to extremes employing regional modeling and statistical interpretation over the E. Mediterranean. Global and Planetary Change 63: 163–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Gai, T., Bitan, A., Manes, A., Alpert, P. and Rubin, S. (1998) Spatial and temporal changes in rainfall frequency distribution patterns in Israel. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 61: 177–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Gai, T., Bitan, A., Manes, A., Alpert, P. and Rubin, S. (1999) Temporal and spatial trends of temperature patterns in Israel. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 64: 163–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtsson, L., Hodges, K. I. and Roeckner, E. (2006) Storm tracks and climate change. Journal of Climate 19: 3518–3543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, J. H., Hewitson, B., Busuioc, A.et al. (2007) Regional Climate Projections. In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M.et al. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Durman, C. F., Gregory, J. M., Hassell, D. C., Jones, R. G. and Murphy, J. M. (2001) A comparison of extreme European daily precipitation simulated by a global and a regional climate model for present and future climates. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 127: 1005–1015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. P. (2008) Global warming impact on the dominant precipitation processes in the Middle East. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 99: 389–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. P. (2009) 21st century climate change in the Middle East. Climatic Change 92: 417–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. P., Smith, R. B. and Oglesby, R. J. (2004) Middle East climate simulation and dominant precipitation processes. International Journal of Climatology 24: 1671–1694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giorgi, F., Bi, X. and Pal, J. (2004) Mean, interannual variability and trends in a regional climate change experiment over Europe. II: Climate change scenarios (2071–2100). Climate Dynamics 23: 839–858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldreich, Y. (1994) The spatial distribution of annual rainfall in Israel – a review. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 50: 45–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassell, D. and Jones, R. (1999) Simulating Climatic Change of the Southern Asian Monsoon Using a Nested Regional Climate Model (HadRM2). HCTN 8: Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.Google Scholar
Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R.et al. (1996) The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77: 437–471.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitoh, A., Yatagai, A. and Alpert, P. (2008) First super-high-resolution model projection that the ancient ‘Fertile Crescent’ will disappear in this century. Hydrological Research Letters 2: 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krichak, S. O., Alpert, P. and Basset, P. (2007) The surface climatology of the eastern Mediterranean region obtained in a three-member ensemble climate change simulation experiment. Advances in Geosciences 12: 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lionello, P. and Giorgi, F. (2007) Winter precipitation and cyclones in the Mediterranean region: future climate scenarios in a regional simulation. Advances in Geosciences 12: 153–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariotti, A., Zeng, N., Yoon, J.-H.et al. (2008) Mediterranean water cycle changes: transition to drier 21st century conditions in observations and CMIP3 simulations. Environmental Research Letters 3: 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakicenovic, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G.et al., eds. (2001) IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). Geneva: GRID-Arendal.Google Scholar
Pinto, J. G., Ulbrich, U., Leckebusch, G. C.et al. (2007) Changes in storm track and cyclone activity in three SRES ensemble experiments with the ECHAM5/MPI-OM1 GCM. Climate Dynamics 29: 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, U., Fuchs, T., Meyer-Christoffer, A. and Rudolf, B. (2008) Global precipitation analysis products of the GPCC. Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) DWD Internet Publikation1–12.Google Scholar
Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M.et al., eds. (2007) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, X. B., Aguilar, E., Sensoy, S.et al. (2005) Trends in Middle East climate extreme indices from 1950 to 2003. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres 110: DOI 10.1029/2005jd006181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×