Quantifying the impact of climate change on evapotranspiration is necessary for devising accurate water and energy budgets in light of global warming. Nevertheless, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), little has been done to bridge this gap. This study, then, implements Penman and Budyko approaches to climatic data retrieved from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to assess evapotranspiration and water availability evolutions through the twenty-first century. Outcomes reveal that the MENA region is indeed vulnerable to a surge in temperature, which can increase evapotranspiration losses and decrease water availability. Under the shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP2-4.5), the potential evapotranspiration (PET) has been projected to increase throughout the MENA region by up to 0.37 mm per year during the middle of the twenty-first century (2021–2050) and by up to 0.51 mm per year during the end of the twenty-first century (2071–2100). Meanwhile, the actual evapotranspiration (AET) has been projected to increase by up to 0.3 (~0.2) mm per year before 2050 (2100). The trends in both projections (PET and AET) are exaggerated under SSP5-8.5. The analysis predicted a shortage of water availability (precipitation—AET), which is alarming for most MENA regions. Relative to the reference period (1981–2010), the decline in annual water availability would reach 26 (62) mm by 2100 under SSP2-4.5 (SSP5-8.5). The rise in temperatures appears to be the principal reason for MENA and water availability responses. This study’s outcomes can facilitate accurate and realistic predictions related to evapotranspiration and water availability, which are key elements in not only managing water resources but also in devising effective climate change mitigation and adaptation plans.
Temperature extremes, such as heat waves, cold waves, droughts, and wildfires, have substantial impacts on human society and the environment. These extremes negatively affect water availability via compounding changes in evaporation (Ajjur & Al-Ghamdi, 2021). They carry severe implications for soil conditions and food production, with follow-on consequences on regional food insecurity, malnutrition, and human and animal diseases (Marvin et al., 2013). Temperature extremes perturb economic sectors by impacting critical infrastructure, supply chains, trade, and tourism (Marvin et al., 2013;Meng et al., 2020). Meng et al. (2020) showed that temperature extremes pose severe threats to the international energy system. The cascading impact of temperature extremes can amplify human migration, raising threats to countries. Wischnath and Buhaug (2014) linked temperature anomalies with increased global conflict in Asia. Further, temperature-related extremes push more sensitive species beyond their niche limits, causing local extinctions and economic losses (Alexander, 2016;Marvin et al., 2013). Based on weather stations' records, Raymond et al. (2020) reported some locations in South Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and coastal southwest North America that have already exceeded intolerance values of wet-bulb temperatures, causing serious health and productivity impacts.Temperature-related extremes gained the researchers' attention during the last decades. Sillmann, assessed the performance of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models for temperature and precipitation extremes by comparing them with HadEX2 (Donat et al., 2013), reanalyses, and CMIP3 models. By measuring the global mean root mean square error, they concluded a good performance of CMIP5 in reproducing the historical trend of climate extremes during 1850-2005 found a reduction in the CMIP5 models' diffusion (spread amongst models) for some extreme temperature indices compared to CMIP3 models. Kim et al. (2020) compared climate extreme indices calculated from CMIP6 with those from CMIP5, HadEX3 (Dunn et al., 2020), and reanalyses datasets during 1981-2000. They concluded that CMIP6 models only improve a little over
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