Historical and Future Climatic Change Scenarios for Temperature and Rainfall for Iraq

Abstract

The world is facing a big challenge of climatic change, mainly due to increasing concentrations of GHGs (greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere. Many researches indicated that the climate change occurred disproportionately on developing countries such as MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries. The climatic model CGCM3.1 (T47) 2 is used in this research to explain the changes in average temperatures and the rainfall on the MENA region with special emphases on Iraq. Historical records (1900-2009) and future (2020-2099) were studied and compared; each period was divided to four sub-periods of thirty years. The results showed that the average monthly temperature for the four historical periods fluctuated between the lowest and highest value as follows: 9.2-32.9, 10.3-32.7, 9.3-32.8 and 8.6-33.9 (oC). The rainfall for historical periods kept on the same distribution during the past 109 years, and fluctuated between the lowest and highest value of 21.3 mm and 37.6 mm with an average that reached up to 26.51 mm. For the future period, the maximum average monthly temperature reached up to 37.41 ( o C) during June and minimum average monthly temperature reached up to 4.24 (oC) during January. The average monthly temperature fluctuated giving a clear impression that the future portends a higher temperature. The average monthly rainfall, for the future period, fluctuated between the lowest and highest value of 12.91 mm and 20.63 mm with an average that reached 16.84 mm which represent a reduction percentage of about 36.47% relative to the historical record of rainfall for the same months. Climatic change is the biggest challenge facing the world. The change in the climatic system is mainly due to the increase in the concentration of GHGs (greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere. It is believed that the human activities are responsible for the increase of GHGs concentrations since the industrial revolution due to burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil