Exposed Population to Hot and Cold Extremes in MENA for Paris Climate Agreement Temperature Goals

Abstract

This study aims to project extreme temperatures and the population exposed to them in the MENA region for two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-1.9 and 1-2.6), representative Paris climate agreement goals of 1.5 and 2.0°C temperature rise limits, respectively, for two future periods, near (2020-2059) and far (2060-2099). The daily maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature of Global Climate Models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model inter-comparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) were used to estimate twelve temperature indices, while the population distribution for the historical and future periods was used to estimate the changes in the population exposed to temperature extremes. The results revealed an increase in days with Tmax>45°C (D45Tmax) by 30 and the population exposure to D45Tmax by 20 million person-day by 2099 for SSP1-2.6. In contrast, there will be a decrease in the days with Tmin<0°C (D0Tmin) by 11, which would cause a decrease in the population exposed to it by 36 and 480 million person-days in the far future for both scenarios. The change in temperature extremes would mostly affect the populations in Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Qatar. For a temperature rise of 2.0 °C, the percentage of the population exposed to the hot extreme will increase between 0.5 and 5.2% by 2059 and between 1.8 and 18.1% by 2099, indicating a significant increase in the population exposed to the hot extreme for only 0.5 °C rising temperature. However, the overall impact will be more in reducing the cold extremes than increasing the hot extreme.