The Middle East will experience more extreme heatwaves because of climate change, although forecasting using artificial intelligence may make their arrival easier to predict, according to new research.
Heatwaves are set to become more common and more intense, a study from Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi found. It investigated the devastating June 2024 heatwave in Makkah, when temperatures soared to 51.8°C and more than 1,300 Hajj pilgrims died.
“In the Middle East and Gulf region, extreme heatwaves have become about twice as frequent as they were several decades ago,” said Dr Diana Francis, head of the university's Environmental and Geophysical Sciences Laboratory and co-author of the paper, which was released last month in Atmospheric Research.
“Regional average temperatures have risen well above historical baselines, with heat extremes now occurring earlier, lasting longer and reaching record intensities that were previously rare.”
What is causing it?
Heatwaves are now more numerous partly because heat domes – in which a high-pressure system traps hot air beneath it – are more common and persistent. Heat domes are, Dr Francis said, “the most extreme situations in terms of heat stress”.
Heat domes last longer partly because circulation between the Earth's poles and mid-latitudes has slowed due to the temperature gradient between them falling, itself a consequence of the poles having warmed faster than other regions.
This weaker circulation meant heat lingered in the killer heatwave of June 2024.
Other factors are that the atmosphere has become hotter because of the greenhouse effect, and higher temperatures have increased evaporation, making the air more humid and better able to hold more heat.
Life-threatening conditions
Analysing Middle East weather data between 2005 and 2025, the scientists found that extreme heat has become more common during the day and night. Each year there are about eight more compound heatwaves – events that last day and night – than there used to be.
“It is indeed a concerning trend because of the huge impact that those extreme heat and humid conditions can have on the public,” Dr Francis said. “They can be even life-threatening conditions, as we witnessed in the recent event in Makkah.”
Another study analysing the June 2024 heatwave, released in December in npj Natural Hazards and written by researchers in Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE, warned that “in a warmer climate, such hazards may become a regular occurrence”.
“Our analysis suggests that the exceptional event of June 2024 represents typical extreme conditions towards the second half of the century if current trends continue,” the researchers wrote.
One of the study’s authors, Prof Jos Lelieveld, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and The Cyprus Institute, indicated that warming in the Gulf region would be a significant concern unless more was done to cut global emissions, which have yet to peak.
“If the scenario continues, the rate of heating … is tremendously problematic,” he said.
Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the UK's University of East Anglia, said extreme heatwaves had been shown by attribution studies to have become more common due to climate change.
“They will continue to become more common and they will become more extreme because of greenhouse gases heating the atmosphere and giving us more extremes, moving us away from average weather,” Mr Minns, who was not connected to the new studies, said.
How AI can save lives
Although extreme heat events have become more common, AI is helping to forecast them. Dr Francis said AI forecasts were faster to run and required a “relatively more simple computing set up and resources” than conventional methods.
In their study, Dr Francis and her colleagues evaluated four AI forecasting models and found that they provided “actionable guidance for operational forecasting”, although they underestimated daytime peak temperatures. The researchers concluded that blending several AI forecasting models was ideal.
Dr Francis said such tools were vital to accurately forecast “life-threatening events” far enough in advance.
“This forms an early-warning system for the public to protect themselves and their loved ones in critical situations. This can save lives,” she said.
AI is increasingly being used to forecast climate-related phenomena, including wildfires, and systems tend to be less energy-hungry than conventional forecasting methods.
Other measures that can mitigate the effects of heatwaves include “cool pavement technologies”, such as reflective coatings. Similar coatings may be used on buildings.
“These materials could be applied to ritual site pavements, temporary structures and pilgrimage pathways, providing immediate thermal relief for pedestrians,” the Natural Hazards researchers wrote.
Shaded rest areas, evaporative cooling systems and water stations can also protect vulnerable pilgrims, the scientists suggested.
Air-conditioned tents are provided for pilgrims completing Hajj. However, more than four-fifths of those who died from the June 2024 heatwave were said to have lacked a Hajj permit and so were prevented from using facilities.
A previous study showed that the Middle East has been affected more severely than any other region by the rise in heatwaves.
The research by scientists in Australia, China and the UK found that in western Asia, about 4,300 people died each year from summer heat in the 2010s, compared to 2,400 in the 1990s.
The June 2024 heatwave in Saudi Arabia was three months after the UAE and Oman were hit by deadly flooding that, like the heatwave, was thought to have been made more extreme by climate change.
