Changing Climate in the MENA Means Changing Energy Needs

<p>The leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has<br />concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and will continue for centuries. The regions<br />in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) have experienced numerous extreme climate events over<br />the past few years including the 2009 flooding in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; the 2005 dust storm<br />in Al Asad, Iraq; water scarcity throughout the Arab MENA; and the rising sea levels on the Nile Delta<br />coast, Egypt. A climate baseline can be developed for regions in the MENA by locating climate stations in<br />the study area using observations made in the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). For projections<br />of future climate, global climate models (GCMs), mathematical equations that describe the physics, fluid<br />motion and chemistry of the atmosphere, are the most advanced science available. The Climate Research<br />Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island has a dataset available to researchers, called the Climate,<br />Ocean and Atmosphere Data Exchange (COADE), that provides easy access to the output from forty<br />global climate models used in the deliberations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s<br />(IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) including monthly global climate model projections of future climate<br />change for a number of climate parameters including temperature and precipitation. Over the past 50<br />years, climate changes in the MENA Region have led to increases in annual mean temperatures and<br />decreases in annual total precipitation. Applying all four greenhouse gas emission futures on a base<br />climate normal of 1981-2010 to an ensemble of forty global climate models used in the Fifth Assessment<br />Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5) results in future temperature<br />increases for the MENA Region ranging from 1.6 to 2.3 degrees Celsius, and in a range of future<br />precipitation changes from reductions of 11 percent to increases of 36 percent by the 2050s (2041-2070).<br />These preliminary results should assist the MENA Region in planning its energy needs and its needs for<br />renewable energy through increasing the understanding of how climate has impacted the region in the<br />past, and how climate will impact in the future.</p><p> </p>