Climate Change and Impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East

Changes in climatic conditions are expected to be particularly severe in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. This has a number of implications including increased temperatures and temperature extremes, decreased annual precipitation, associated with fresh water scarcity and vegetation shifts. Possible consequences are that food production is threatened, human health hazards and heat-related mortality are increased.

Given the relatively high sensitivity to climate change and the limited capacity of the natural environment and the socio-economic sectors in the region to cope with these issues, we expect relatively high ecological and societal vulnerabilities. This calls for science-based international discussions, new adaptation strategies, and informed political and economical decisions.

The project will bring together the available environmental and economical database and apply regional climate models to perform a regional assessment, including projections for the near and more distant future in the 21st century.

Project number	n/a
Subject(s)	FINANCE-ECONOMY , HYDRAULICS - HYDROLOGY , METHTODOLOGY - STATISTICS - DECISION AID , NATURAL MEDIUM , RISKS AND CLIMATOLOGY
Acronym	CIMME
Geographical coverage	Cyprus,
Budget (in €)	0
Programme	CyI internal funds
Web site	http://eewrc.cyi.ac.cy/climatechangemetastudy
Results	Presentations During several conferences and workshops, (among which the 'Energy, Water & Climate Change in the Mediterranean & the Middle East') presentations were given by Cyprus Institute researchers on this project. You can find PDFs of them below. Can we fix the climate?, by Jos Lelieveld, Institute Professor. Report on Cloud Seeding for Rain Enhancement (May 09), by Prof. Zev Levin 'Climate Change and the Eastern Mediterranean Precipitation Regime', by Manfred A. Lange, director of the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center (EEWRC) of the Cyprus Institute. 'Climate change in Cyprus: projections from regional climate model simulations', by Panos Hadjinicolaou, Associate Research Scientist. 'Severe ozone air pollution in the Persian Gulf region', by Jos Lelieveld, Institute Professor. Publications Hadjinicolaou, P., C. Giannakopoulos, C. Zerefos, M. Lange, S. Pashiardis, and J. Lelieveld, "Mid-21st century climate and weather extremes in Cyprus as projected by six regional climate models", Regional Environmental Change: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, pp. 1-17, 10/2010. Toreti, A., E. Xoplaki, D. Maraun, F. G. Kuglitsch, H. Wanner, and J. Luterbacher,"Characterisation of extreme winter precipitation in Mediterranean coastal sites and associated anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns", Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2010. Luterbacher, J., S. J. Koenig, J. Franke, G. van der Schrier, E. Zorita, A. Moberg, J. Jacobeit, P. M. Della-Marta, M. Küttel, E. Xoplaki, et al., "Circulation dynamics and its influence on European and Mediterranean January-April climate over the past half millennium: results and insights from instrumental data, documentary evidence and coupled climate models", Climatic Change, 2010. Kuglitsch, F. G., A. Toreti, E. Xoplaki, P. M. Della-Marta, C. S. Zerefos, M. Türkes, and J. Luterbacher, "Heat Wave Changes in the Eastern Mediterranean since 1960", Geophysical Research Letters, 2010. Giannakopoulos, C., P. Hadjinicolaou, E. Kostopoulou, K. V. Varotsos, and C. Zerefos, "Precipitation and temperature regime over Cyprus as a result of global climate change", Advances in Geosciences, vol. 23, pp. 17–24, 2010. Giannakopoulos, C., P. Hadjinicolaou, C. Zerefos, and G. Demosthenous, "Changing Energy Requirements in the Mediterranean Under Changing Climatic Conditions", Energies, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 805–815, 2009. Contact person Prof. Jos Lelieveld, email: j.lelieveld@cyi.ac.cy Tel. +357 22208600
Period	[01/03/2008 - 28/02/2011]

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