The deserts are covered with snow and the storms penetrate the cities. What is happening in the Arab world? | the Arab world

Cold spells of varying intensity are expected to occur almost anywhere, but the rates of their occurrence are what always attract the attention of scientists.

The Arab world is currently exposed to a severe cold spell that some countries have never experienced before, in Syria, Jordan and Libya, and the snow has reached areas where it has not appeared for many years, and in Lebanon, cold storms caused power cuts. in several domains.

As for Egypt, a severe wave of bad weather swept through the country, including heavy rainfall with a record drop in daytime and nighttime temperatures, which prompted the country to stop certain tourist activities, especially in the Sinai Peninsula. .

A new Arab homeland

Cold spells are periods of time that indicate a sudden drop in temperature from their known rates in a particular region, and they usually occur in winter and are associated with snowfall.

Due to the natural changes in the weather, cold spells of varying degrees of intensity are expected to occur almost anywhere, but what always catches the attention of scientists are the rates of occurrence of this type of waves.

To understand the idea as closely as possible to reality, consider, for example, what is currently happening in the city of Ain Safra in the Algerian state of Naama, where the city has witnessed heavy snowfall at 3 occasions, all of which have occurred in the last 5 years: 2017, 2018 and 2021.

Before the turn of the millennium, the Arab world was not at the rendezvous with this large number of (European) climatic disturbances.

Before the turn of the millennium, the Arab world was not up to date with this large number of climatic disturbances, and here we are talking about a wide range of heat waves, cold waves and dust storms.

For example, in September 2015, an exceptional sandstorm hit the Middle East, causing deaths and halting public life. Meanwhile, a research team from Princeton University studied it, to reveal findings that climate change – along with other factors – was a major cause of its occurrence.

The study highlighted droughts that affected several regions of the Arab world, in particular that the summer of 2015 was unprecedentedly hot and the amount of dust available for the storm increased, which ignited its impact.

high rates

In fact, the past 7 years have been the hottest in the history of average temperatures around the world, but could global warming cause cold snaps? A team of scientists believe that rising global average temperatures are helping to increase the rates of various weather disturbances, including cold spells.

For example, an international research team noted in 2019 that unusually warm temperatures in the Arctic can destabilize the cold polar vortex spinning above, causing some of its tracks to shift deeper from west to east, in the journal Nature Climate Change.

On the one hand, another computer simulation from 2016 predicted that as average Arctic temperatures increase, we can expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of cold spells in temperate regions. north over the next few years.

Scientists expected, with “sudden stratospheric warming” last month, to trigger a severe cold snap in separate (European) regions.

In addition, a joint research team from several British universities indicated that the stratosphere of the Earth’s atmosphere is witnessing – from January 5, 2021 – an unusual weather condition called “sudden stratospheric warming”, which made it clear to the team that it caused a severe cold snap was to be launched in the weeks following that date, in different parts of the world, and we were on Al-Jazeera.net. We covered the study of this team in a previous report.

This event has been repeated 40 times in the past 60 years, and it may – in combination with climate change – increase the rates of severe cold spells and send them to regions further south, all the way to the Arab world.

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