Hot Persian Gulf sun (Photo : ClaudioVentrella via Getty Images)
Researchers on Monday published a report in the journal Nature Climate Change revealing that parts of the Persian Gulf might get too hot as to be unlivable by the turn of the century, unless of course carbon dioxide emissions are reduced as soon as possible.
The heat index according to various computer simulations utilized in the study suggested that heat and humidity in the given area might rise to 165-170 degrees or 74-77 Celsius for a minimum of six hours; and this would cause massive heat waves to the extent that the ill and elderly will start dying and the very healthy would be endangered - because the body won't be able to release the excessive heat trapped within.
Co-author Elfatih Eltahir, an MIT environmental engineering professor, said "You can go to a wet sauna and put the temperature up to 35 (Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit) or so. You can bear it for a while, now think of that at an extended exposure" of six or more hours.
Eltahir said the kind of prolonged and oppressive combination of heat and humidity that would occur will be such that humans have never experienced since the Earth formed. And considering the climate and geography of the Persian Gulf together with the threats of global warming, the heat wave will occur every 10 years or so at the turn of the century.
Considering the fact that over 70,000 people died in 2003 during the deadly heat wave in Europe, study co-author Jeremy Pal of Loyola Marymount University added that the type of such heat would be a joke compared to what might happen in the Persian Gulf.
It is true that residential homes and offices with air-conditioners in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha among other cities might be livable, but it will be a different experience for people working outside or living in homes with no air-conditioners. People in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, might still be able to cope with a lessened heat, but it will be a different story for pilgrims attending the annual hajj pilgrimage.
"Some of the scariest prospects from a changing clime involve conditions completely outside the range of human experience," said Chris Field, a climate researcher with the Carnegie Institute for Science. "If we don't limit climate change to avoid extreme heat or mugginess, the people in these regions will likely need to find other places to live."
The implications of the results of the study are frightening for people exposed in the Gulf region, said Dr. Howard Frumkin, dean of the University of Washington school of public health. Frumkin was not part of the research. Eltahir reasoned that the amount of projected heat in the Gulf would be dramatically reduced if countries implemented emission reduction according to the global limit of 2 degrees.
