Strongly increasing heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 21st century

J. Lelieveld (), Y. Proestos, P. Hadjinicolaou, M. Tanarhte, E. Tyrlis and G. Zittis
Additional contact information
J. Lelieveld: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Y. Proestos: The Cyprus Institute
P. Hadjinicolaou: The Cyprus Institute
M. Tanarhte: Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
E. Tyrlis: The Cyprus Institute
G. Zittis: The Cyprus Institute

Climatic Change, 2016, vol. 137, issue 1, No 17, 245-260

Abstract: Abstract The ensemble results of CMIP5 climate models that applied the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios have been used to investigate climate change and temperature extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Uncertainty evaluation of climate projections indicates good model agreement for temperature but much less for precipitation. Results imply that climate warming in the MENA is strongest in summer while elsewhere it is typically stronger in winter. The summertime warming extends the thermal low at the surface from South Asia across the Middle East over North Africa, as the hot desert climate intensifies and becomes more extreme. Observations and model calculations of the recent past consistently show increasing heat extremes, which are projected to accelerate in future. The number of warm days and nights may increase sharply. On average in the MENA, the maximum temperature during the hottest days in the recent past was about 43 °C, which could increase to about 46 °C by the middle of the century and reach almost 50 °C by the end of the century, the latter according to the RCP8.5 (business-as-usual) scenario. This will have important consequences for human health and society.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-016-1665-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:137:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-016-1665-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-016-1665-6

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().