The Leading Edge of Global Heat – Arabian Peninsula
Image by Planet Volumes.
Major portions of the Arabian Peninsula are already exceeding 2°C above pre-industrial and likely headed for a staggering temperature rise over coming decades. This disturbing news comes via a major new study by Saudi Arabia’s most prestigious university.
The epicenter of world oil & gas production is in direct line of fire of unnerving acceleration of global warming. This news comes from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, ranked in the top 1.2% of best global universities and published as a peer-reviewed study: Abdul Malik, et al, Staggering Temperature Rise Predicted for the Middle East and North Africa: Some Parts of the Region, Which is Already Warming at the Same Rapid Rate as the Arctic, Could See up to 9 Degrees Celsius of Warming, Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmosphere, November 21, 2024.
It is a devastating outlook that should shake the Kingdom to its foundation as its principal source of wealth, oil & gas production, works against the Kingdom in a most intrusive unstoppable manner. Early signs of deathly heat are already starting to manifest, for example, between the 14th and 19th of June 2024, 1,301 people on the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca died due to extreme heat with temperatures exceeding 50 °C (122 °F). At the time, heat and humidity pushed past survival limits for the weakest.
The dangers of exceeding 2C, as outlined in numerous statements by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -IPCC- and echoed by MIT: “Scientists and policymakers have long agreed that global warming beyond 2° C above the pre-industrial average would pose large and escalating risks to human life as we know it on Earth.” (Source: Why did the IPCC choose 2° C as the goal for limiting global warming? MIT, June 21, 2022)
But the fossil fuel industry is not the least bit concerned. In fact, the industry has scoldingly told the world to Stick It, Deal with It, fossil fuels are here to stay until the last drop, period! Meanwhile, as of September 2024, fossil fuels account for 81.5% of total primary energy consumption worldwide (Energy Institute). This figure has remained constant for decades in the face of 30+ years of annual UN climate conferences of the nations of the world calling for reduction of fossil fuel emissions.
In a March 2024 speech at a Houston energy conference Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser described the ambitious timetables of environmental groups as failing because the world continues to consume record amounts of fossil fuels every year: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions.”
In the face of demand assumptions for oil and gas, according to the International Energy Agency (IAE), the light at the end of the tunnel for renewables is also brightening: “Led by the massive growth of renewable electricity, the share of renewables in final energy consumption is forecast to increase to nearly 20% by 2030, up from 13% in 2023.”
Yet, the fossil fuel emissions issue is not going away anytime soon.
Because of unremitting fossil fuel production, IAE says 75% in 2030, the world is going to be forced to live with dangerous levels of global warming. After all, nearly every one of the 195 signatory countries to the Paris 2015 Agreement has failed to meet commitments. According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%. But according to the Paris ’15 Agreement, a reduction of 43% from 2019 levels is required by 2030. The shortfall is shameful.
Alas, over the past two years, major corporations, world’s biggest, have reversed their climate commitments, e.g., JP Morgan, State Street Quit Climate Group, Blackrock Steps Back, Reuters, Feb. 15, 2024. In fact, ignoring climate change/global warming has become trendy in the corporate world.
Mistakenly, Wall Streeters and fossil fuel companies believe carbon capture technology will overpower the threat of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and “save the day.” Based upon numerous studies, this is not true, not even close to true, e.g., The False Promise of Carbon Capture as a Climate Solution, Scientific American, May 1, 2024. Rather, carbon capture is a Trojan Horse. Therefore, the challenge going forward will be adaptation to a hotter and hotter unlivable planet.
Eureka! will the planet of the future be viewed from outer space as a world of domed cities surrounded by barren land and turbulent seas?
The Malik Study of heat in the Arabian Peninsula presents a challenging future that could easily go off the tracks and down the rabbit hole: “The Middle East and North Africa, which already include some of the hottest and driest spots on Earth, are undergoing accelerated climate change and will reach warming thresholds two to three decades earlier than the rest of the world. The region, which already has record-breaking summer temperatures, is currently close to exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming on average compared to pre-industrial temperatures. Additional warming in the region could make some areas uninhabitable without adaption measures… The rapid rate means that the Middle East and North Africa could reach 3 and 4 degrees Celsius of warming (5.4 and 7.2-degrees Fahrenheit) nearly three decades earlier than most of the globe. That warming will be especially rapid in inland areas of the Arabian Peninsula.”
“Adaptation will be necessary, and these adaptation measures could be tested and developed in the Middle East and North Africa. Global warming is a global problem, so you cannot prevent it in just one place. But you can develop artificial environments in regions with high populations,” Ibid.
“Artificial Environment,” as clearly favored in the Malik Study, will likely become the new solution for how to confront climate change. Other than an artificial environment, what choice is there when the world’s leading climate scientist James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) claims: “Nations of the world meet at annual COP meetings (Conferences of the Parties), where they promise to reduce emissions to ‘net zero’ at some distant date, an almost meaningless pledge. There is no plan to actually stabilize climate…Global temperature took an unprecedented leap of half a degree Celsius in the past two years, which confounded the climate research community… We are headed to global warming greater than 2°C.”
An upcoming global average of 2C suggests the unspeakable for the Middle East, which is outpacing the global average by 2-3 times.
“Mortality from extreme heat could surpass that of all infectious diseases combined, and rival that of cancer and heart disease.” (Source: Why Heat Waves of the Future May Be Even Deadlier Than Feared, The New York Times, October 25, 2024)
In all, and reading between the lines, it seems obvious that the Malik Study serves as a proxy statement for the Saudi Kingdom, implying: (a) the oil spigots will remain wide open, forever, and ever (b) atmospheric CO2 will increase, without limit (c) global temperatures will go up, a lot (d) live with it!
Already, the Middle East favors “artificial environments”: Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort with 22,500 square meters of indoor ski area. The park maintains a temperature of −1 to 2 °C (30 to 36 °F) throughout the year. Another example: Surfbase will be Dubai’s first all-year-round indoor surfing spot. It is set to open its doors in 2024 or 2025. And Dubai has built three artificial archipelagos for residence living in the shape of palm trees in the Arabian Gulf.
The Saudi message embedded in the Malik Study is loud and clear, learn to adapt to uncomfortably high temperatures because high-end free-market capitalism is addicted to oil. Is a ‘domed’ Dubai really possible?
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