Scientists Blame Climate Change For extreme Drought In Iraq, Iran And Syria

Baghdad, (APP – UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 8th Nov, 2023) The “extreme” drought gripping Iraq, Syria and Iran would not have occurred without climate change caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, scientists said Wednesday, warning that punishing dry spells will become more intense as the world warms.

High temperatures due to human-caused climate change made the drought “much more likely to happen” — about 25 times more likely in Syria and Iraq and 16 times more likely in Iran, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.

“Human-induced climate change has increased the intensity of such a drought such that it would not have been classified as a drought in a 1.2C cooler world,” said the scientists.

It found that existing vulnerability from “years of conflict and political instability” also reduced people’s ability to respond to the drought, sparking a “humanitarian disaster”.

The research focused on the period from July 2020 to June 2023 in two regions where impacts have been most severe: Iran, and the basin of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the rivers that cross Syria and Iraq.

Both regions are currently experiencing an “extreme drought” as classified by the US Drought Monitor scale, said the scientists in a statement.

“After quite good rains in 2020 and good harvests, three years of very low rainfalls followed with very high temperatures led to a drought with very severe impacts on agricultural access to potable water,” said co-author Friederike Otto, of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.