Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:19:22.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analysis of Recent Climatic Changes in the Arabian Gulf Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Hassan A. Nasrallah  and
Robert C. Balling Jr
Hassan A. Nasrallah
Affiliation:
College of Health Sciences, Department of Environmental Sciences, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait City, State of Kuwait
Robert C. Balling Jr
Affiliation:
Professor & Director, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Within the past few years, interest in climate change has increased dramatically in the face of the many apocalyptic predictions associated with the highly-popularized ‘greenhouse’ effect. Accordingly, scientists have produced many studies based on global, hemispheric, and regional, climatic data-bases. While most of the regional studies have been based on data from North America, Europe, and Australia, little research has been conducted in other areas of the world that have an equal (or greater) economic and climatic stake in the ‘greenhouse’ debate. In this investigation, we analyse the climatic records of the Arabian Gulf area in an attempt to identify recent changes that may or may not be related to any ‘greenhouse’ effects.

The observed climate changes over the past century in the Arabian Gulf area include (a) an increase in temperature of 0.65°C, (b) warming in summer and little or no warming in winter, (c) no warming in the first 60 years of record but accelerated warming in the most recent 40 years, and (d) a small decline in precipitation. In many cases, the results are unlike those found in the analysis of Northern Hemispheric and/or global climate records. However, many of these observed climate changes in the Arabian Gulf area are broadly consistent with 2×CO2 predictions from various numerical climate models. We hope that the analyses presented in this investigation will aid decisionmakers in their difficult policymaking activities.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1993 , pp. 223 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1993

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

Balling, R.C. Jr, (1991). Impact of desertification on regional and global warming. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 72, pp. 232–4, illustr.Google Scholar
Balling, R.C. Jr, (1992). The Heated Debate: Greenhouse Predictions versus Climate Reality. Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco, California, USA: xxxvi + 195 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Balling, R.C. Jr, & Idso, S.B. (1992). Anthropo-generated climate change in Europe. Environmental Conservation, 19(4), pp. 349–53, 6 figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balling, R.C. Jr, & Wells, S.G. (1990). Historical rainfall patterns and arroyo activity within the Zuni River drainage basin, New Mexico. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 80, pp. 603–17, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charlson, R.J., Schwartz, S.E., Hales, J.M., Cess, R.D., Coakley, J.A. Jr, Hansen, J.E. & Hofmann, D.J. (1992). Climate forcing by anthropogenic aerosols. Science, 255, pp. 423–30, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diaz, H.F., Bradley, R.S. & Eischeid, J.K. (1989). Precipitation fluctuations over global land areas since the late 1800s. Journal of Geophysical Research, 94, pp. 1195–210, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folland, C.K., Karl, T.R. & Vinnikov, K.Y. (1990). Observed climate variations and change. Pp. 195–238 in Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment (Eds Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J. & Ephraums, J.J.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xxxix + 365 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Folland, C.K., Karl, T.R., Nicholls, N., Nyenzi, B.S., Parker, D.E. & Vinnikov, K.Y. (1992). Observed climate variability and change. Pp. 135–70 in Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment (Eds Houghton, J.T., Callander, B.A. & Varney, S.K.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xii + 200 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J., & Ephraums, J.J. (Eds) (1990). Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xxxix + 365 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Houghton, J.T., Callander, B.A. & Varney, S.K. (Eds) (1992). Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xii + 200 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Jones, P.O., Wigley, T.M.L. & Wright, P.B. (1986). Global temperature variations between 1861 and 1984. Nature (London), 322, pp. 430–4, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karl, T.R., Heim, R.R. Jr, & Quayle, R.G. (1991). The greenhouse effect in central North America: If not now, when? Science, 251, pp. 1058–61, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mitchell, J.F.B., Manabe, S., Meleshko, V. & Tokioka, T. (1990). Equilibrium climate change — and its implications for the future. Pp. 131–72 in Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment (Eds Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J. & Ephraums, J.J.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xxxix + 365 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Nasrallah, H.A., Brazel, A.J. & Balling, R.C. Jr, (1989). Analysis of the Kuwait City urban heat island. International Journal of Climatology, 10, pp. 401–5, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nasrallah, H.A. & Balling, R.C. Jr, (in press). Spatial and temporal analysis of Middle Eastern temperature changes. Climatic Change, illustr.Google Scholar
Plantico, M.S., Karl, T.R., Kukla, G. & Gavin, J. (1990). Is the recent climate change across the United States related to rising levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Journal of Geophysical Research, 95 (D10), pp. 16617–37, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, M.E. & Jiang, X. (1990). Simple representation of atmosphere-ocean GCMs and estimation of the time scale of CO2-induced climate change. Journal of Climate, 3, pp. 1297–315, illustr.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, M.E. & Jiang, X. (1991). Revised projection of future greenhouse warming. Nature (London), 350, pp. 219–21, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spangler, W.M.L. & Jenne, R.L. (1988). World Monthly Surface Station Climatology (and Associated Datasets). National Center for Atmospheric Research, Scientific Computing Division, Data Support Section, Boulder, Colorado, USA: [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Spencer, R.W. & Christy, J.R. (1990). Precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites. Science, 247, pp. 1558–62, illustr.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wigley, T.M.L. & Barnett, T.P. (1990). Detection of the greenhouse effect in the observations. Pp. 239–55 in Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment (Eds Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J., & Ephraums, J.J.). Cambridge University press, Cambridge, England, UK: xxxix + 365 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Wigley, T.M.L. & Raper, S.C.B. (1992). Implications for climate and sea level of revised IPCC emission scenarios. Nature (London), 357, pp. 293–300, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar