Business-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heatwaves in the Middle East and North Africa

Zittis, George; Hadjinicolaou, Panos; Almazroui, Mansour; Bucchignani, Edoardo; Driouech, Fatima; Rhaz, Khalid El; Kurnaz, M. Levent; Nikulin, Grigory; Ntoumos, Athanasios; Öztürk, Tuğba; Proestos, Yiannis; Stenchikov, Georgiy L.; Zaaboul, Rashyd; Lelieveld, J.

doi:10.1038/s41612-021-00178-7

Cited by 87 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…Another study by Zittis et al [72] employing Heat Wave Magnitude Index with a comprehensive ensemble of regional climate projections to simulate future hot spells in MENA reports that business-as-usual emission scenario will lead to super and ultraextreme heatwaves in MENA. Especially in the second half of the 21st century, MENA will face potentially life-threatening excessively high temperatures (up to 56 • C and higher) with extended duration (several weeks).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is stated that by the end of the 21st century about half of the MENA population who live in urban centers will be exposed to annually recurring super-and ultra-extreme heatwaves, and among other socioeconomic sectors, agriculture, the water and energy nexus, as well as the labor productivity, biodiversity and livestock in MENA will be negatively affected by these heatwaves. Therefore, to assess regional impacts, underpin mitigation and adaptation measures, robust information from climate downscaling studies has crucial importance for the region [72].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Projected Changes in Extreme Temperature and Precipitation Indices Over CORDEX-MENA Domain

2021

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In this study, projected changes in climate extreme indices defined by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices were investigated over Middle East and North Africa. Changes in the daily maximum and minimum temperature- and precipitation- based extreme indices were analyzed for the end of the 21st century compared to the reference period 1971–2000 using regional climate model simulations. Regional climate model, RegCM4.4 was used to downscale two different global climate model outputs to 50 km resolution under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Results generally indicate an intensification of temperature- and precipitation- based extreme indices with increasing radiative forcing. In particular, an increase in annual minimum of daily minimum temperatures is more pronounced over the northern part of Mediterranean Basin and tropics. High increase in warm nights and warm spell duration all over the region with a pronounced increase in tropics are projected for the period of 2071–2100 together with decrease or no change in cold extremes. According to the results, a decrease in total wet-day precipitation and increase in dry spells are expected for the end of the century.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Changes in Extreme Temperature and Precipitation Indices Over CORDEX-MENA Domain

2021

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“…ALADIN-Climate results corroborate previous studies, projecting the MENA region to host global hot spots for drought in the late twenty first century. Zittis et al [10] added that global climate predictions suggest a significant strengthening of summer heat extremes in the MENA region. They added that, on a business-as-usual pathway, unprecedented super-and ultra-extreme heatwave conditions will appear in the second half of this century.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in Egypt

Mostafa

Wahed

El-Nashar

et al. 2021

Water

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This paper presents a comprehensive study to assess the impact of climate change on Egypt’s water resources, focusing on irrigation water for agricultural crops, considering that the agriculture sector is the largest consumer of water in Egypt. The study aims to estimate future climate conditions using general circulation models (GCMs), to assess the impact of climate change and temperature increase on water demands for irrigation using the CROPWAT 8 model, and to determine the suitable irrigation type to adapt with future climate change. A case study was selected in the Middle part of Egypt. The study area includes Giza, Bani-Sweif, Al-Fayoum, and Minya governorates. The irrigation water requirements for major crops under current weather conditions and future climatic changes were estimated. Under the conditions of the four selected models CCSM-30, GFDLCM20, GFDLCM21, and GISS-EH, as well as the chosen scenario of A1BAIM, climate model (MAGICC/ScenGen) was applied in 2050 and 2100 to estimate the potential rise in the annual mean temperature in Middle Egypt. The results of the MAGICC/SceGen model indicated that the potential rise in temperature in the study area will be 2.12 °C in 2050, and 3.96 °C in 2100. The percentage of increase in irrigation water demands for winter crops under study ranged from 6.1 to 7.3% in 2050, and from 11.7 to 13.2% in 2100. At the same time, the increase in irrigation water demands for summer crops ranged from 4.9 to 5.8% in 2050, and from 9.3 to 10.9% in 2100. For Nili crops, the increase ranged from 5.0 to 5.1% in 2050, and from 9.6 to 9.9% in 2100. The increase in water demands due to climate change will affect the water security in Egypt, as the available water resources are limited, and population growth is another challenge which requires a proper management of water resources.

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“…Since the last decade, there is an increasing number of MENA studies based on the hub of the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX: http://mena-cordex.cyi.ac. cy/), focusing on individual regional model simulation and validation (Zittis et al 2021;Almazroui et al 2016;Almazroui 2016;Bucchignani 2016 ), as well as several future projections and impact assessment studies for the region (Zittis et al 2021;Driouech et al 2020;Ozturk et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The future scenarios indicate the intensification of heatwaves occurrence over this region particularly in the inland, while the total annual precipitation amounts will decrease from 5 to 20% in the North and increase in nearly all the remaining parts notably in the Sahara exceeding +40%. Zittis et al (2021) for a business-as-usual pathway (RCP 8.5), indicate that in the second half of this century, the MENA region including Algeria will experience unprecedented super-and ultra-extreme heatwave conditions. These events involve excessively high temperatures (up to 56 °C and higher) and will be of extended duration (several weeks).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Climate Projections in Algeria Using Statistical DownScaling Model

Abed

2021

Preprint

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In this study, we perform a statistical downscaling to investigate projected future changes in minimum temperature (T-min), maximum temperature (T-max), and precipitation (PRCP) for the three periods the 2020s (2011–2040), the 2050s (2041–2070), and the 2080s (2071–2100), with respect to the reference period 1981–2010 over Algeria by applying the Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM). The NCEP reanalysis data and CanESM2 predictors of three future scenarios, RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are used for model calibration and future projection, respectively. In order to get realistic results, bias correction was also applied to the climate variables. The evaluation of the SDSM performance indicated that model accuracy for simulating temperatures and precipitation was statistically acceptable. The predicted outcomes exhibit strong warming for both extreme temperatures under the worst-case scenario (RCP 8.5), it is more pronounced for the maximum temperature and over the Sahara region. The results indicate that the highest changes are expected to increase by 3.6 to 5.0°C for the minimum temperature and 5.0 to 8.0°C for the maximum temperature for the strong radiative forcing pathway (RCP8.5) by the end of the century as compared to the reference period. Under the optimistic scenario (RCP2.6), the strength of the warming is projected to increase up to 2.0°C for both extreme temperatures. For the precipitation, the projections indicate for all scenarios a significant decrease in rainfall by approximately 20% over the northwest region and central Sahara, while non-significant change is expected for the center and eastern coastal regions. Conversely, the projections of rainfall under different emission scenarios exhibit an increase (~10–40%) at the central and eastern high plateaus in the north and the extreme west and south of the Sahara. The study reveals several discrepancies among considered stations in the projections of seasonal rainfall under different emission scenarios where most of them exhibit a significant increase of precipitation in summer. Our findings corroborate previous studies by demonstrating that Algeria’s climate will warm further in the future. The results might be beneficial for policymakers for planning strategies and may help to mitigate the risks linked to climate change.

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Business-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heatwaves in the Middle East and North Africa

Cited by 87 publications

References 59 publications

Projected Changes in Extreme Temperature and Precipitation Indices Over CORDEX-MENA Domain

Projected Changes in Extreme Temperature and Precipitation Indices Over CORDEX-MENA Domain

Potential Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in Egypt

Future Climate Projections in Algeria Using Statistical DownScaling Model

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