Climate change brings risk of cyclones: study

Manama

Is the Persian Gulf, including Bahrain, facing the risk of cyclones? Yes, says a media report published by the UK’s prominent daily, the Guardian. 

And the reason for cyclone risk is nothing, but climate change.

So far, no cyclones have been recorded at the shallow and waters of the Persian Gulf.

But the future won’t be the same, stated the report, referring to a US study.

The study published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, said that the shallow and warm waters of the Persian Gulf might generate the storms in future as a side-effect of global warming.

One cannot always rely on history to predict the future, lead author of the article, Ning Lin of Princeton University said of the findings she reached with Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She said that the probability of cyclones is very low for the Persian Gulf. “But ... if you build a nuclear power plant you have to consider these things,” the Guardian quoted, Ning Lin as saying. 

The scientists estimated that for a city like Dubai, a storm surge of 1.9 metres in height could be expected once in every 1,000 years based on recent climate warming, and one of 4 metres once every 10,000 years.

The scientists dubbed extreme tropical cyclones as ‘grey swans,’ adding that they could not be predicted from history alone. 

The metaphor is inspired by “black swans”, judged impossible by Europeans until they were found in Australia.

According to the study, the closest cyclone to the Persian Gulf was in 2007, when Cyclone Gonu in the Arabian Sea struck Oman and Iran, killing 78 people and causing $4.4bn in damage.