Research Results: Severe Drought in Iran, Syria, and Iraq Due to Climate Change

A new study shows that the severe drought that has faced millions in Iran, Syria, and Iraq over the past three years would not have occurred without climate change caused by human activities. According to research by a group of international climate scientists published on Wednesday, November 8, in the journal 'World Weather Attribution', the drought in West Asia, which began in July 2020, is primarily due to the region's low rainfall being evaporated as a result of higher-than-normal temperatures. Frederic Otto, a climate researcher at the Royal College of London and the lead author of the paper, states, 'If the Earth had not warmed by more than one degree Celsius since the mid-19th century, this situation would never have turned into a drought.' This is a case of climate change that has unnaturally intensified natural dry conditions, turning it into a humanitarian crisis, leading people to hunger, thirst, and displacement. Mohammad Rahimi, a climatology professor at Semnan University and a member of the research team, says, 'Human-induced global climate change is currently making life significantly harder for tens of millions of residents in West Asia.' He adds, 'With every degree of global warming, life in Syria, Iraq, and Iran will become more difficult.' The research group, led by Frederic Otto, compared the climate changes of the past three years with multiple computer simulations of Earth’s conditions without human-induced climate change, examining temperature, rainfall, and humidity. The report states that computer simulations did not find a significant footprint of climate change in the reduction of rainfall, but the evaporation of water from lakes, rivers, wetlands, and soil was 'much greater than what would have occurred without global warming due to climate change.' The authors of the study calculated that climate change has turned relatively normal water conditions into severe drought, with the likelihood of drought conditions occurring in Syria and Iraq due to climate change being 25 times higher and in Iran 16 times higher. Ranaa Alhaj, a member of the Climate Center of the Red Cross, Lebanon, and one of the authors of the paper, states that drought is not unusual for the Middle East, and conflicts, including the Syrian civil war, make this region, which has damaged infrastructure and poor water management, more vulnerable to drought. Frederic Otto concludes that 'this situation has already impacted the limitations that some individuals can adapt to.' He states, 'As long as we continue to consume fossil fuels or even issue new permits for the exploration of new oil and gas fields, these types of events will intensify, destroy livelihoods, and keep food prices high. And this is not just a problem for some parts of the world; it is truly a problem for everyone.'