Variation of meteorological parameters over Saudi Arabia (1990‐2006)
| Date | 01 May 2010 |
| Pages | 191-216 |
| Published date | 01 May 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20425945201000013 |
| Author | Shafiqur Rehman,Mohammad El‐Gebeily |
| Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management |
Copyright © 2010 WASD
World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2010
191
Variation of meteorological
parameters oVer
saudi arabia (1990–2006)
Shaqur Rehman*
King Fahd University, Saudi Arabia
Mohammad El-Gebeily†
King Fahd University, Saudi Arabia
Abstract: The annual and seasonal variation of meteorological parameters has
been studied for twenty stations in Saudi Arabia. The contour maps showed tem-
perature and rainfall increasing and wind speed decreasing trends with decreas-
ing latitudes. The mean temperature varied between a minimum of 8.4ºC and
a maximum of 34.61ºC while overall mean was 23.95ºC. The Mean, minimum
and maximum values of pressure were 932.12, 923.3 and 944.6mb, respectively.
The corresponding relative humidity values were 42.7, 78.5 and 21.5%, respec-
tively. The empirical models developed for the prediction of monthly mean values
of individual parameters were able to estimate the values with acceptable accuracy.
Keywords: meteorology; seasonal and annual variation; temperature; barometric
pressure; precipitation; wind speed; relative humidity; climate.
introduction
The meteorological parameters such as air
Temperature (T), barometric Pressure (P),
daily total rainfall (RFT), Wind Speed (WS)
and Relative Humidity (RH) play important
role in the day-to-day life of human beings.
Accordingly, climate change on global,
regional, and local scales has attracted
attention of researchers and scientists. The
growing materialistic life styles and towering
energy needs have aggravated the climatic
conditions and caused global warming,
acid rain, excessive floods and tsunami like
happenings. Over the past century or so the
world has warmed by approximately 0.6°C,
as quoted by Nicholls and Collins (2006).
The climatic studies are very common and
have been conducted in almost every part
of the world.
According to Nicholls and Collins
(2006) the temperatures across nearly all
of Australia increased through the 20th
century, as did sea surface temperatures in
the surrounding oceans. Shepherd (2006)
employed 108-year precipitation histori-
cal data to identify possible anomalies in
* Corresponding author: Center for Engineering Research, Research Institute, King Fahd University of Petroleum
and Minerals, KFUPM Box 767, Dhahran-31261, Saudi Arabia; e-mail: srehman@kfupm.edu.sa
†
Center for Engineering Research, Department of Mathematics, Research Institute, King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran-31261, Saudi Arabia; e-mail: mgebeily@kfupm.edu.sa
192 S. Rehman and M. El-Gebeily
rainfall in and around two major arid urban
areas, Phoenix, Arizona and Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. Temperature records suggested
(Shepherd, 2006) that Riyadh has experi-
enced an adjustment in mean temperature
in response to the growth of urban surfaces.
On the other hand, the ground-based pre-
cipitation records indicated an upward
trend in mean and total precipitation in
and around Riyadh during last 10–15 years.
Turkes et al. (2002) analysted mean, maxi-
mum and minimum surface air tempera-
tures recorded at 70 climatological stations
in Turkey during the period from 1929 to
1999 to study the spatial and temporal pat-
terns of long-term trends, change points,
significant warming and cooling periods
and linear trend rates. Hasanean (2001)
investigated the trends and periodicity of
air temperature series from eight meteoro-
logical stations in the east Mediterranean
using different correlation tests. He found a
significant positive trend at 99% confidence
in Malta, Jerusalem and Tripoli, and negative
trend at 95% confidence level in Amman.
Over the Indian Continent, Nizamuddin
(1995) discussed the spatial and tempo-
ral variability of precipitation during the
northeast and southwest monsoons.
Freiwana and Kadioglub (2008) studied
the climate variability of Jordan by exam-
ining the annual, seasonal and monthly
precipitation and extreme temperature
time series of 14 meteorological stations.
Signals of climate trends such as warming
in maximum temperature, more statistically
significant warming in minimum tempera-
ture, decreasing trends in daily temperature
range and statistically insignificant decreas-
ing precipitation trends were detected. The
incidence of heat waves, hot days, very hot
days and extremely hot days in Kuwait dur-
ing the warm seasons (May–August) from
1958 to 2000 was investigated by Nasrallah
et al. (2004). Their results showed that the
extremely high temperatures in the warm sea-
son were due to the changes in the regional
circulation pattern. Elagib and Addin Abdu
(1997) studied the climate of Bahrain dur-
ing the past six decades, particularly through
the temperature and rainfall trends. They
further evaluated the consequent degree of
aridity on the Islands.
Alkolibi (2002) assessed the possible
impact of climatic change on Saudi Arabia’s
agriculture and water supplies using climatic
change scenarios using General Circulation
Models and related research. His assess-
ment indicated an increase in temperature
and decrease in precipitation which could
have a major negative impact on agricul-
ture and water supplies in Saudi Arabia. It
is noticed from previous climatic studies
that temperature and rainfall time-series
are much used in climate variability analysis
(see e.g., Elagib and Mansell, 2000; Kadıoglu,
1997; Maki and Kurose, 1990; Lazaro et al.,
2001; Moonen et al., 2002; Morrison et al.,
2002; Velichko et al., 2002; Sneyers, 1990;
Solow, 1987; Turkes et al., 1996).
This paper utilises daily mean values of
the air temperature, barometric pressure, pre-
cipitation, relative humidity and wind speed
from 20 stations spread all over Saudi Arabia
to study the variation over different years
and seasons. The study also presents the con-
tour maps of all the parameters and national
series of each parameter obtained by taking
the arithmetic mean of all the stations.
data and site description
Saudi Arabian consists of desert and semi-
desert with oases, where half of the total sur-
face is uninhabitable desert. The major part
of the western area of Saudi Arabia is plateau
while the east is lowland with very hot cli-
mate. The southwest region has mountains
as high as 3000 m. Saudi Arabia, one of the
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