Study Says Climate Change Will Make Middle East Uninhabitable
According to a recent study, rapidly changing climate will make certain sections of North Africa and Middle East unlivable in some time. Researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have discovered that the the region, already seething in summers, could become so hot that "human habitability is compromised."
The researchers also pointed out that even if the global warming is limited to less than two degrees, as agreed at Climate Change Paris Summit - COP21, it would still make little difference to the overheating in those regions as the summer temperatures increase faster than the average global warming speed.
"In future, the climate in large parts of the Middle East and North Africa could change in such a manner that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy," Jos Lelieveld, director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and professor at the Cyprus Institute, said in a statement.
The team of researchers analyzed how the temperatures in Middle East and North Africa will develop over the course of 21st Century. They discovered that while the night temperatures in these areas will not drop lower than 30 degrees, the day time heat can hit up to 46 degrees during the day.
It was also noted that by the turn of the century, "midday temperatures" on a warm day could reach as high as 50 degrees Celsius and the heat waves will increase ten times more than they do today.
"If mankind continues to release carbon dioxide as it does now, people living in the Middle East and North Africa will have to expect about 200 unusually hot days, according to the model projections," Panos Hadjinicolaou, associate professor at the Cyprus Institute, said.
"Climate change will significantly worsen the living conditions in the Middle East and in North Africa," he said.
"Prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms can render some regions uninhabitable, which will surely contribute to the pressure to migrate," he added.
