A briefing document from Oxford Analytica, an analysis and advisory company, warned the region 鈥渉as not fully adapted鈥� to the challenges posed by climate change and faces high costs, with each flooding event costing as much as $4.7 billion.
The report follows severe flooding last month, when some areas in Dubai received more than 250mm of rain in 24 hours 鈥� the highest figure in at least 75 years and about double the amount that typically falls in a year.
鈥淪everal previous scientific studies have come to the same conclusion, which is that extreme rainfall events, especially during spring, are becoming more frequent and more intense and this tendency is set to continue in the coming decades,鈥� said Dr. Diana Francis, an assistant professor who heads the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (Engeos) Lab at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.
Dr. Diana Francis said the reasons for this trend include a combination of high temperature and high humidity, which contributes to the formation of 鈥減owerful convective clouds鈥�, which are formed by convection, the process by which warm air rises. 鈥淐hanges in the atmospheric circulation in the upper levels of the atmosphere associated with the jet [streams] are providing the trigger for these events,鈥� she added.
In in Nature Scientific Reports, Dr Francis and her colleague Dr Ricardo Fonseca found that the tropics would expand towards the poles, with the UAE and Oman seeing their climate change from subtropical to tropical.
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