Analysis of Recent Climatic Changes in the Arabian Gulf Region

Abstract

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.