[1] A climate change workshop for the Middle East brought together scientists and data for the region to produce the first area-wide analysis of climate extremes for the region. This paper reports trends in extreme precipitation and temperature indices that were computed during the workshop and additional indices data that became available after the workshop. Trends in these indices were examined for 1950-2003 at 52 stations covering 15 countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. Results indicate that there have been statistically significant, spatially coherent trends in temperature indices that are related to temperature increases in the region. Significant, increasing trends have been found in the annual maximum of daily maximum and minimum temperature, the annual minimum of daily maximum and minimum temperature, the number of summer nights, and the number of days where daily temperature has exceeded its 90th percentile. Significant negative trends have been found in the number of days when daily temperature is below its 10th percentile and daily temperature range. Trends in precipitation indices, including the number of days with precipitation, the average precipitation intensity, and maximum daily precipitation events, are weak in general and do not show spatial coherence. The workshop attendees have generously made the indices data available for the international research community.
The effect of the dust on the climate in the Caucasus region, with a specific focus on Georgia, was investigated with a Regional Climate Model RegCM interactively coupled with a dust model. For this purpose we have executed sets of 30 years simulations (1985–2014) with and without dust effects by RegCM4.7 model with 16.7 km resolution over the Caucasus domain and with 50 km resolution encompassing most of the Sahara, the Middle East, and the Great Caucasus with adjacent regions. Results of calculations have shown that the dust aerosol is an active player in the climate system of Georgia. Mineral dust aerosol influences on temperature and aerosol optical depth spatial and temporally inhomogeneous distribution on the territory of Georgia and generally has been agreed with MODIS satellite data. Results of numerical calculations have shown that dust radiative forcing inclusion has improved simulated summer temperature. The mean annual temperature increased across the whole territory of Georgia in simulations when dust direct effect was considered.
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