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Geological oceanography of the Arabian Gulf
41
Meteorology and climate
R.M. Reynolds
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Building No 318, Upton L.I., NY 11973, U.S.A.
[email protected]
Keywords: Persian Gulf, Arabian shamal
Introduction
In a discussion of the meteorology of the Gulf region, the northern Gulf, the southern
Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman need to be considered as distinct regions because they
differ in their areal extent, surrounding topography, and synoptic scale forcing (Fig.
1). We define the northern Gulf by a line from the tip of Qatar northeast to Iran.
Winds in the northern Gulf are controlled by the interaction of the large-scale pressure
fields and the local mountain ranges that steer the winds into an along-axis direction,
primarily northerly.
The Gulf of Oman is broad and deep (240 x 450 km, and from 200 m to typically
4000 m deep at the Arabian Sea) and the climate in the Gulf of Oman is markedly
different than that of the Gulf (Hastenrath and Greischar, 1991). While the Gulf is
affected mainly by the extra-tropical weather systems from the northwest, the Gulf
of Oman is at the northern edge of the tropical weather systems in the Arabian Sea
and Indian Ocean, where a monsoon circulation produces southerly winds in the summer
and strong northerlies in the winter. The Strait of Hormuz approximates a boundary
between the two systems and even in the southern Gulf winds can be considered a
transition between the northern Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Because the Gulf is so shallow, winds have a pronounced effect on the water
circulation and mixing processes. This is especially true in the northern Gulf, above
Qatar, which is quite shallow and subject to strong winds from the north. The winds
produce wind-driven circulations that can dominate any water currents due to density
differences or tidal asymmetry. Further, wind-generated waves can reach the bottom
and effect sediment transport and resuspension. Any oil slicks or other forms of surface
pollutants are particularly influenced by winds both by direct wind forcing and by
the surface currents the winds produce.
In the Gulf of Oman winds produce large scale circulations in the surface waters
The Gulf Ecosystem: Health and Sustainability, pp. 41–51
Edited by N.Y. Khan, M. Munawar and A.R.G. Price
Ecovision World Monograph Series
© 2002 Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands
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and upwelling along the southern coast of Iran and the eastern coast of Oman. The
upwelling regions are fertile and produce a good fishing industry (Brock et al., 1992;
Brink et al., 1998; Arnone et al., 1998).
In this chapter the present-day and past climate of the Gulf area is examined from
the point of view of how meteorology drives the oceanography of the region. Results
of major studies from the work of Schott (1918), to recent expeditions and numerical
models are represented. Current theories of climate trends and some popular catastrophic
possibilities are discussed in terms of their effects on the Gulf region.
Current meteorological climate
The Gulf region is located on the North-Temperate tropical margin, between latitudes
24-30o N, a region that encompasses most of the earth’s deserts. These latitudes mark
a region between the tropical trade-wind circulation and the synoptic weather systems
of mid-latitudes, where sinking dry air produces the clear skies and arid conditions
of the Middle East. Temperatures are high, though winters may be quite cool (10o C)
in the northwestern extremities. The sparse rainfall occurs mainly as sharp downpours
between November and April and is higher in the northeast. Humidity over the water
is high and can be very oppressive in the summer months. The little cloud cover that
exists is more prevalent in winter and thunderstorms and fog are rare. Dustorms or
haze occur frequently in summer.
The climate of the northern Gulf is strongly influenced by the Taurus and Pontic
mountains of Turkey, the Zagros mountains of Iran, and the Hejaz mountains along
the western Arabian Peninsula. Tropical storms generally track from the northwest
to the southeast along the axis of these mountain ranges. North of the Gulf, low pressure
centres, with their associated cold fronts move from west to east, and the associated
winds are influenced by the mountain ranges so that they follow the Tigris and Euphrates
valleys and the axis of the northern Gulf.
Winds: Shamal, Kaus, sea breeze, and monsoons
The “Shamal” (Arabic for north) wind blows down the axis of the Gulf in summer
and winter (Fig. 2). Usually the Shamal appears in the northwest and spreads south,
it is seldom strong, and rarely reaches gale force (Murty and El-Sabh, 1984). The
winter Shamal occasionally sets in abruptly with great force and speeds above 10 m
s-1, and gale force Shamals occur once or twice each winter and bring the strongest
winds and highest waves of the season. Classic Shamal winds occur after a cold front
passage and southerly winds, called “Kaus” in Arabic or “Shakki” in Persian, precede
←
Fig. 1. Topography and bathymetry of the Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman. Wind patterns are
controlled by the mountain ranges in Iran and Oman. The low arid regions to the south produce strong
sea/land-breeze circulations along those coasts. The Gulf is relatively shallow and gradually deepens to
an 80 m depression near Iran. An important feature in the circulation is the sudden drop off, with no
sill, at the exit of the Strait of Hormuz which allows bottom water to fall unrestricted into the Gulf of
Oman.
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Fig. 2. A schematic of typical wind patterns in the Gulf region during the year. The arrows indicate
typical (mean) directions and the numbers show the mean wind speeds during the season. A synoptic
pressure pattern and accompanying synoptic winds for a Shamal/Kaus wind even are overlaid over the
mean pattern for the month of January.
the front. The Kaus winds slowly increase in intensity as the front approaches. The
Kaus can reach gale force before the frontal passage and the onset of the Shamal.
Due to the channelling of the low-level air flow by the Zagros mountains of western
Iran, the strongest of the southerly winds occur on the eastern, Iranian, side of the
Gulf. Severe gales can be caused by cold air accumulation over northern Iraq and
Syria pouring through the Tigris-Euphrates valley as a density flow (Feteris, 1973;
Navy, 1980; Perrone, 1981).
As described in Section 1, the winds exert a strong influence on the mixing and
the circulation of the Gulf. Models show current circulations that are variable and
often composed of eddies or subgyres (Clifford et al., 1997; Blain, 2000). The circulation
is much more eddy-like when the winds blew across the axis of the sea, mainly due
to wind vorticity from local topography. When the winds are along the axis of the
sea, there are fewer eddies and the flow was more along the axis.
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A strong sea breeze occurs along the entire coastline, especially along the Arabian
peninsula. The intense heating of the land relative to the water creates a circulation
with rising air over the land and a compensating sea breeze (toward the beach) at the
coast. The land cools during the night and generally the wind along the coast reverses
and becomes an offshore land breeze in the early morning. Coastal wind stations
show that the sea breeze can reach speeds of as high as 10 m s-1, while the associated
land breeze might not be more than 1-2 m s-1. The sea-land breeze cycle is superimposed
on the larger scale wind patterns, and the combined effect is that the mean wind vector
along the coast points inland during the day when the sea breeze is strongest and
aligns itself more along shore, about the same as the offshore winds, during the night.
The asymmetric behaviour acts to drive surface pollutants (oil and others) to the beach
much faster than they would move otherwise.
Surface pollutant trajectories
In the open sea a rule of thumb is that an oil patch might move 15o to the right of the
wind (in the northern hemisphere) and at 3% of the wind speed. This occurs because
of the rotation of the Earth. In the shallow Gulf this rotation effect is reduced because
of frictional interaction with the bottom. The wind drift and sea-land breezes combine
to push oil and other pollutants onto the beaches of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Qatar, and finally the United Arab Emirates. Drifting buoy studies in the Gulf find
that buoys along the western side of the Gulf are quickly driven onto the beach (Tawfig,
1987; Reynolds, 1993b).
In an enclosed basin such as the Persian Gulf, sustained winds such as Shamals
generate secondary circulations over the entire basin. The wind drives the water against
the opposing coast, and the reverse pressure gradient drives the secondary flow. The
secondary flow is generally against the wind and in some areas it can oppose and
even nullify residual, wind-induced currents. An example of this effect is the very
low observed drift over several months of the drifting buoys in the central northern
gulf (discussed below).
During the 1991 massive oil spill in the northern Gulf, two frontal passages occurred
and the northerly Shamal winds were interrupted by southerly Kaus winds. The Kaus
halted the spill’s advance and gave response teams additional time to mobilise.
Particularly high winds accompanied the first Kaus event and raised the waves to
3 m where seastate is normally less than 1 m. This hampered response efforts but the
agitation also assisted in the oil’s dispersion. The combined wind and current effects
drove the oil to shore, fouling 300 km of coast between Kuwait and the Abu Ali
peninsula. The oil ran ashore just north of the seawater intakes for industrial cooling/
process water and the desalination plants at Jubail (which produces >80% of the water
for the Saudi capital of Riyadh).
Hydrology: rivers, evaporation and precipitation
Water is the most precious fluid on earth, and there are few challenges as important
as conserving the world’s usable water, supplying clean drinking water and water for
irrigation to those who need it. Population pressures are depleting the earth’s store of
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usable water at a rate that will soon threaten our food supply. Nowhere is this situation
more critical than in the arid regions of the Middle East.
Most river inflow into the Gulf occurs in the northern end, primarily from Iraq
and Iran. Recent river volume flow measurements were provided to the MT. MITCHELL
scientists, and the new data allowed a better estimate of outflow than had hitherto
been available. The Shatt Al-Arab is a nexus of three major rivers: the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers together provide an annual average of 708 m3 s-1 and the Karun adds
748 m3 s-1. Thus, the total average outflow of the Shatt Al-Arab is 1456 m3 s-1. From
Bagdad to the Shatt Al-Arab, almost 90% of the Tigris-Euphrates flow is lost to
evaporation and agriculture and most of the discharge into the Gulf comes from the
Karun river. Other modern estimates for the total discharge at Shatt Al-Arab are
approximately 1000 m3 yr-1 (Britannica.com, 2001)). Other major rivers are the Hendijan
(203 m3 s-1), the Hilleh (444 m3 s-1), and the Mand (1387 m3 s-1). The sum of these
averages amounts to an annual runoff of 110 km3 yr-1, but there is great variability in
these published estimates. It is greater than earlier published estimates of from 5 to
100 km3 yr-1 (Ahmed and Sultan, 1991) and needs further verification. If the annual
volume is divided by the area of the Gulf, an equivalent change in depth of 46 cm yr1 results (Reynolds, 1993a). Al-Hajri (1990) uses a value of 16 cm yr-1. Industrial
and agricultural development are having a pronounced effect on the outflow from
the Shatt Al-Arab, where annual runoff has decreased substantially over the past twenty
years.
Annual rainfall in the arid climate of the Gulf is small, of the order of 7 cm yr-1.
Rainfall makes a negligible contribution to the fresh-water budget of the Gulf region.
Estimates of evaporation vary from 500 cm yr-1 to 144 cm yr-1. The lower figure
from Privett (1959) is in agreement with Meshal and Hassan (1986) who estimated
200 cm yr-1, and this latter term is probably closer to the actual amount (Ahmed and
Sultan, 1991). Evaporation in the summer is considerably higher than the winter and
the steamy waters unleash a soupy mist that lowers visibility to a few hundred meters
and creates radar snowstorms that can become a serious problem for ship manoeuvres.
Energy budgets
Any body of water is in long-term equilibrium in its heat and salt content. The excess
evaporation over fresh water input results in excess salt that must be balanced by the
flow in the Strait of Hormuz. Likewise, the annual net heat loss over the entire Gulf
is about 21 W m-1 (Table 1) (Ahmed and Sultan, 1991). This number is in agreement
with similar computations in the Red Sea (Bunker et al., 1982; Ahmad and Sultan,
1989). The heat loss over the entire area of the Gulf must be supplied by a net heat
transport through the Strait of Hormuz from the Gulf of Oman. The circulation pattern
at the Strait of Hormuz, where warm fresher water is at the top and cold salty water
out at the bottom, both balances the energy deficit and also balances the salt excess
which was caused by the strong evaporation.
The energy budget in the Gulf has four major contributors, solar radiation, heat
radiation, heat transfer, and evaporative cooling. Solar heating provides a large input
into the water, heat transfer (sensible heat) varies widely but the annual mean is almost
negligible, and the longwave and evaporative net heat transfer act to cool the water.
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Table 1. Summary of the wet energy balance in the Gulf. Positive indicates heat flux into the water
column. All numbers are in units of W m-3.
Source
Max/Month
Min/Month
Mean
Solar radiation
Longwave (heat)
Sensible heat flux
Evaporative
275/Jun
-92/Jan
-30/Jan
-299/July
136/Dec
-42/May
42/Jun
-85/Feb
212
-66
1
-168
TOTAL
-21
The list below summarises the fluxes during the year and as an average (positive
sign indicates heat into the water).
There is a great deal of room for error here, mainly due to the lack of good long-term
over-the-water measurements. The above estimates came from climatic atlases, monthly
means, and relied on fixed-value bulk coefficients which we know to depend on the
wind speed and air-sea temperature differences. The energy budget is a crucial
consideration when one tries to compute the flow through the Strait of Hormuz and
the residence time in the Gulf, and more accurate estimates are in great need.
Climate change: past and future
Mankind currently puts 5.2 billion tonnes (6 Gt) of CO2 into the atmosphere each
year. Of that, the oceans take up 2 Gt and terrestrial plants have a net zero balance.
Thus, approximately 3.2 Gt CO2 remain in the atmosphere each year. Since the beginning
of the industrial revolution in the middle nineteenth century, the concentration of
CO2 has increased from 260 ppm to 415 ppm in an exponential growth curve that
shows no sign of levelling off. The famous Vostok ice cores indicate that concentrations
of CO2 and CH4 are higher now than in the past 420000 years.
Because of increased concentrations of CO2 and CH4 , along with a few lesser
gasses, the atmosphere is trapping more and more longwave (heat) radiation, resulting
in an overall global warming (the “greenhouse effect”). There is no question that
Earth is warming, and warming at an accelerating pace. The World Meteorological
Organization (WMO, 2000) announced recently that for global mean temperature, 8
of the 10 warmest years in recorded history have been recorded in the past decade,
and 1999 and 1998 rank in first and second place respectively. The year 2000 will
probably rank as the fifth warmest.
The relationship between CO2 release and warming has been difficult to recognise
because although the take up of CO2 is instantaneous, the warming has a built in
delay of about 50 years, mainly because of the ocean’s thermal inertia. Thus, since
the beginning of this century Earth’s mean temperature has risen by about 0.5o C,
and at current levels of CO2 release, the final temperature increase for expected levels
of release is expected to be 2o C in this century (IPCC, 2000). In comparison, the
increased solar albedo resulting from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption caused a global cooling
of approximately 0.3o C.
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The global atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice caps must be viewed as a single interrelated system. Processes in any part of the system will have some impact on all
parts of the system by way of “teleconnection” pathways. The teleconnections work
both ways in complex feedback networks and thus certain processes can result in a
system response that acts to increase the process. An example of such a “positive
feedback” would be the melting of the Arctic tundra and release of vast quantities of
methane which would accelerate the greenhouse heating rate. In other cases, “negative
feedback” acts to suppress the original process such as when increased evaporation
from warming creates more low level clouds which reflect sunlight and thus cool the
atmosphere. Further, the processes and their feedback loops are generally non-linear
and this results in exponential responses to perturbations.
We cannot expect forests to help avert the continuous increase of CO2, even with
extensive planting and reduction of deforestation. According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Watson, 2000), tree planting will
buy a little time, but such “carbon sinks” will soon become saturated with carbon
(called “sink saturation”) and start returning most of it to the atmosphere and accelerate
warming. The concept of sink saturation was not understood at the time of the Kyoto
meeting where planting trees was assigned an important role. So, planting more trees
could soon prove a quick way of speeding up climate change, not moderating it.
Local effects of global warming can be extreme and are reported regularly in news
reports. For instance, extreme warming (>5o C above normal) in northern Canada
has resulted in reduced ice fields, poor fur quality, and polar bears are 40-100 kg
smaller than last year. Permafrost destabilisation leads to bridge collapse, road havoc,
and erosion (NY Times, Dec 1998). In the tropical Pacific Ocean, coral are dying at
enormous rates. Up to 80% of the coral in the Seychelles and 90% in Indonesia are
dead. The sea surface temperature in the Indian ocean is now 29o C, but occasionally
exceeds 33oC which results in severe bleaching (Harpers magazine, April 1999, Global
Coral Reef Alliance, Chappaqua NY).
The Gulf region must be aware of changing climate, especially global warming,
in its arid desert locale. An IPCC study of regional impacts of climate change (Watson
et al., 1997) reports that for the Middle East we will see little change to the already
existing arid conditions (i.e., most lands that are deserts are expected to remain deserts).
Small increases in precipitation are expected, but this will likely be countered by
increased evaporation. Grasslands, livestock, and water resources are likely to be the
most vulnerable because they are located in marginal areas. Plants are known to grow
better in increased CO2 levels, and increased plant robustness and growth are a possible
outcome, but only marginally. The report warns of increased water shortage, and
emphasises that agricultural practices, especially irrigation, need to be carefully managed
to improve the efficiency of water use. The possible water shortage, increased
temperature, and increased spread of vector-borne diseases are likely to result from
continued climate trends.
Sea level is rising in concert with the global changes. This can have profound
effects on human activity world wide, especially in third-world coastal countries. It
is estimated that sea level has risen by 18 cm in the past 50 years (Nigel Hawkes, N.
Y. Times, 16 Oct. 1998) and over the next 100 years we can expect an additional rise
of >50 cm (IPCC, 2001). If Antarctica melts as predicted the rise could be as much
as >83 cm (IPCC, 2001). Also, it is believed that other contributors to sea level rise
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– melting of mountain glaciers, water expansion, melting of the Greenland ice sheet
– are also underestimated. In the Gulf, a study of monthly mean sea level changes
shows a trend over the past 11 years of 2.3 cm (Sultan et al., 1995). A recent theory
(Leatherman et al., 2000) suggests that as sea level rises, the inland effect can extend
to 150 times more the incursion than that would be predicted on terrain slope alone!
Thus sea level rise, especially in the flat coastlines along the southern coast of the
Gulf are expected to be highly impacted by sea level rise.
The above global climate warming and sea level rise are gradual and, while
significant, are not catastrophic. However, several sudden and catastrophic events
have been reported in the literature (Zimmerman et al., 1998). Paleoclimate records
indicate that many times in the Earth’s history the climate changed abruptly and
precipitously in the time span of a few years to as little as a single year. An example
of an abrupt climate change, the average temperature of the Earth changed dramatically
over just a decade 12800 years ago when the planet was returning from the last ice
age (and the Gulf did not exist). After a period of gradual warming, the circulation
of the Atlantic ocean suddenly changed and the Earth was thrown into ice-age conditions
called the “Younger Dryas event,” which lasted 1300 years. The end of this cold
spell came even more abruptly, with a 6o C warming over a 5 year period.
Sudden cooling events and subsequent warming events coincide with sudden shifts
in the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean, called the North Atlantic oscillation. The
theory is that the Gulf Stream circulation is greatly reduced, and its extension, the
Norwegian current which supplies an enormous amount of heat to northern Europe,
stops altogether. Within a decade, France would have a temperature like central Canada
and Norway would resemble Greenland. Conditions on the Earth before the Younger
Dryas event were similar to those today, and there is speculation (Rühlemann et al.,
1999) that a similar sudden climate change is possible; with disastrous consequences
for most of Europe.
A similar cooling event occurred 4200 years ago (2200 BC) and corresponds to
the sudden collapse of the world’s first human empire in Mesopotamia. A sediment
core from the Gulf has revealed that the supply of dust from the Mesopotamian region
at 2200 BC was roughly five times the current dust transport levels. Thus the Younger
Dryas, or similar cooling events signal extreme drought and dust to the Middle East.
Another example of how the North Atlantic oscillation can effect Middle East climate
can be found in precipitation records. In general, the rainfall in Istanbul, near the
head waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, vary in phase with the North Atlantic
oscillation. When the North Atlantic was cold, the headwaters region was cooler in
the streams that supplied Mesopotamia’s water.
Abrupt and catastrophic changes are interesting to contemplate, but there is no
observational or computer climate model confirmation of these occurring in the near
future. The observed gradual warming trends are expected to continue, and need to
be incorporated into any scenario for the next 100 years.
Summary and gaps in our knowledge
There is a multitude of areas where our knowledge of the meteorological climate in
this region can improve. This improvement is a critical aspect of our ability to
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understand, to model, and to predict the interrelationships between the meteorological
processes and the oceanographic response. The following list represents only the most
essential areas of our gaps in knowledge.
A better understanding of the sea breeze processes along all the coasts is important
here. Further, the sea-land breeze dynamics need to be an essential part of numerical
models of the circulation and pollutant trajectories.
As the earth warms and sea level rises, 18 cm in the past 50 years, we need to
better understand how the beach areas and low coastal areas will be effected.
Real over-the-water flux measurements of high scientific quality need to be taken
and then used to develop a “tuned” bulk flux algorithm that can be applied to existing
and past measurements.
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