Accelerated Historical and Future Warming over the Middle East and North Africa in Response to the Global Temperature Change

The global average temperature has increased significantly since the preindustrial era. Translating global warming into regional scales is crucial to formulate effective environmental and climate policies. A realistic assessment of regional climate change requires high-resolution datasets. We present a new high-resolution (9 km) analysis of historical and future regional warming over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) using observations, reanalysis products, and statistically downscaled global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phase 5 and 6. The observed regional temperature change over the MENA subregions appears to be up to three times faster than the global average. Regional warming has already surpassed the 1.5 ℃ and is at the brink of exceeding 2 ℃. By the end of the 21st century, the Arabian Peninsula will warm from 2.66 ± 0.57 to 7.61 ± 1.53 ℃ under the low (SSP1–2.6) and high-end (SSP5–8.5) emission scenarios, respectively. We identify spatially distinct summer and winter warming hotspots. The most prominent spots in summer are the Arabian Peninsula Hotspot Region (APHR) and Algerian Hotspot Region. Major winter hotspots appear over Mauritania in West Arica and the Elburz Mountains. Moreover, APHR has already exceeded 2 °C of warming and will warm by about 9 °C under the high-end emission scenario by the end of the century. The 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 ℃ global warming levels are associated with substantial regional warming of 2.1 ± 0.2, 2.76 ± 0.2, 4.19 ± 0.25, and 5.49 ± 0.38 ℃, respectively, over the Arabian Peninsula.