Posted: March 24th, 2023

The Impact of Climate Change on Red Sea Weather Patterns and Its Implications for Maritime Safety

The Impact of Climate Change on Red Sea Weather Patterns and Its Implications for Maritime Safety
1. Introduction
Climate change has become a significant field of interest for researchers as it poses a severe threat to the planet. Over the span of a few decades, climate change has been seen to produce various effects on the ocean and atmosphere. A main contributor to these effects are changes in the atmospheric system as well as rise in temperature of the sea surface. These changes have possible implications on patterns and intensity of winds, sea currents, and sea/land temperatures. One of the regions of interest is the impact of climate change on the Red Sea.
The Red Sea is a semi-enclosed sea which is connected to the Indian Ocean. It is largely an oligotrophic basin with sea surface temperatures around 21-28 degrees Celsius in the North and 27-30 degrees Celsius in the South and an average wind speed of 5-7 m/s. In the last few decades the Red Sea has seen an increase in coastal development, shipping, and oil industry activities. The growing economy of the region may be threatened by changes in tropical weather that may have implications for the above economic activities. An example is the increased frequency of tropical storms in the Arabian Sea which have potential to cross into the Gulf of Aden and affect the wind and sea state in the Southern Red Sea. As a result, Egypt has recently made plans to dig an underwater passage that will connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. This will create an alternative route for shipping between Europe and Asia. It is difficult to determine a climate change signal from the natural variability of climate systems. However, indications of changes in the tropical atmospheric system are a cause for concern for the countries that border the Red Sea and the industries that depend on its current climate.
1.1 Background
Red Sea is one of the most important waterways in the world. It provides a passage to Suez Canal, which in turn is the shortest route to the European ports from the oil-rich Middle East. It is also vital to the Egyptian economy, which is heavily dependent on the revenue it receives from the Canal. The Canal, which is managed and run by the Suez Canal Authority, is a major source of income for Egypt. The safety of the ships sailing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal is of major concern for the Suez Canal Authority, Egypt, the Middle East, and the rest of the world, which has vested interests in the Canal. The weather patterns in the Red Sea have a major effect on the safety of the vessels sailing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. A change in the weather patterns with an increase in hazardous weather events could have an impact on the safety and lead to an increase in accidents in the Red Sea.
Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time, with regards to heat, cloudiness, wind, pressure, etc. It is known to vary over time and from one region to another. The weather in a given region is determined by a number of events occurring both globally and locally. Global events include the movement of the ITCZ, El Nino, La Nina, etc. Local events are phenomena such as sea breeze, land breeze, mountain and valley breezes. These events are largely determined by the atmospheric pressure gradient, as wind flows from high to low pressure. Any change in the given events will cause a change in the weather.
1.2 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of climate change on the characteristics of Red Sea weather patterns, and to explore the implications of any observed changes for maritime safety in the region. Both the Red Sea and the adjacent Gulf of Aden are narrow, semi-enclosed water bodies with high traffic density. The route through the Red Sea is the only means of access to the Suez Canal, making it one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. A large proportion of the shipping consists of tankers and bulk carriers, many of which are of a size that makes them unsuitable for alternative routes around the southern tip of Africa. The economics of shipping through the Suez Canal are finely balanced, with increased insurance premiums or a perceived increase in the risk of groundings or collisions leading shipping companies to reconsider the cost effectiveness of the route. At the same time, the economies of many countries bordering the Red Sea are dependent on revenue from the Suez Canal and associated port activities. Thus, any factors that increase the risk of an incident leading to closure of the Canal (e.g. a tanker grounding or collision, or a bridge washout) would have serious economic repercussions. This underscores a necessity for detailed information about the present and future states of Red Sea weather patterns, and their implications for maritime safety in the region.
1.3 Research Questions
Examine the nature of climate change in the Red Sea region and assess how it may impact severe weather patterns and the resultant implications for maritime safety.
Investigate the economic and political implications of severe weather and maritime safety in the Red Sea to determine the direct and indirect costs to various regional and extra-regional actors and how they may motivate action to ameliorate or adapt to predicted changes.
Assess the current capacity of Red Sea states and the international community to provide accurate and timely weather forecasting and maritime safety information to Red Sea users and how climate change may impact this service.
Identify the potential opportunities and challenges posed by climate change impacts on Red Sea weather and maritime safety in regards to international relations and state security within the region.
2. Climate Change and Its Effects on Red Sea Weather Patterns
Climate change is a significant problem worldwide and has its origin in human activity. It is very well documented that there is a linkage between sea temperatures. Subsequently, it will have its negative impact on the changing climate and various weather patterns. As the temperature of the sea water has a direct correlation with air temperature, a subsequent rise in the global sea temperature will result in an increase in air temperature. This means that if we take that scenario, sea temperatures in the Red Sea increase by 2-3°C over the next 50-100 years, which is common with many predicted scenarios of climate change, we foresee a rise in air temperature of around 3-4°C. It's clear to see that this increased air temperature will not be isolated to the desert regions surrounding the Red Sea. Localized temperature increases, combined with global climate phenomena such as El Nino, will lead to a disruption of localized wind patterns and the monsoon climates typical to both the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Rising air temperatures will also have an effect on the frequency and intensity of various types of storms, again leading to various effects on the different regions of the Red Sea. These will have considerable implications for the intensity and frequency of future weather events taking place throughout the Red Sea region. A large number of higher intensity storms will displace rainfall over land. Given a higher intensity of storm, these events will be far more frequent in the future. This means that the tropical desert regions surrounding much of the shorelines will experience more occurrences of rainfall. Though this may sound beneficial, the very fine balance of desert ecosystems means that increased rainwater will severely disrupt the native flora and fauna, resulting in desertification of large areas of the tropical deserts. High intensity storms will also have effects on wind patterns and cyclones. The Horn of Africa is particularly susceptible to cyclones, which regularly form in the northwest Indian Ocean and cross over land into the Arabian Peninsula. Increased storm intensity will result in a high rate of spin for cyclones. Cyclones with higher spin rates are known to curve into higher latitudes, posing potential risks to countries such as Saudi Arabia and even Iran.
2.1 Overview of Climate Change
In the past century, the Earth's temperature has risen by 0.6 ± 0.2°C and sea surface temperature by 0.4°C ± 0.3. There is confidence that these changes are dominantly due to anthropogenic forcing (Houghton et al., 2001). The main manifestation of climate change in the world's climate and weather systems is an increase in temperature. This is predicted to have a domino effect on many weather systems and phenomena, affecting their intensity and frequency. In general, the world's subtropical high-pressure belts are predicted to expand polewards. This will lead to increased aridity in the already arid subtropical regions and decreased aridity in the more temperate mid-latitude regions. The Red Sea lies within the tropics and would be thus expected to receive an increase in incoming solar radiation. This would be further intensified by the fact that the increase in temperature is predicted to be proportionally higher in the tropics. High rates of speciation of weather systems depend upon the temperature gradients between different air masses. With an increase in temperature, there would arguably be a decrease in the frequency of these weather systems. In the context of the Red Sea, the thermal low over the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea is likely to strengthen. This is because the low is caused by the heating of the land during the summer months, and with an increase in temperature, this heating would be more intense.
Hence, climate change is predicted to have profound effects on the world's climate systems, and many of these would, in turn, affect the frequency and intensity of weather systems. It is pertinent to understand how climate change would affect each given area, and to this end, it is useful to study how climate change would affect specific regional climate systems. This study looks to understand how climate change would affect weather patterns in the Red Sea and what implications this would have for Red Sea Meteorology.
2.2 Red Sea Weather Patterns
The region of the Great Giza Plain and the Red Sea coast to the west experiences a typical wind regime of northwesterly in the winter and southeasterly in the summer. The wind is most predominant along the northwest Arabian coasts during the winter and early spring when it helps to the development of the well-known Red Sea coastal and offshore wind maxima. During the winter, Red Sea winds are strongest, with studies showing the wind intensity has been increasing by about 0.1 to 0.2 m/s per year since the 1960s. February or March month has the most intense winds, associated with a high incidence of these winds being khamasini. This is a meteorological term used to describe the widespread, strong, and long-lived gusty winds and often accompanied by sand/dust storms/blizzards. By considering the contrast in pressure between a high-pressure system over Egypt and a low-pressure system over the Red Sea or Western Saudi Arabia, combined with current knowledge that climate changes are enhancing the global pressure gradients, it is highly likely that future increase in Red Sea wind intensity and duration. GCM studies have shown that future winds over Egypt and the Red Sea will be more northwesterly. During the summer, winds are weaker. Although there has been much research, the general consensus is that the Intertropical Convergence Zone is still the main feature of the monsoon. It is agreed that there has been some sort of strengthening of the zone and that the Indian monsoon has influenced a northwards shift in the monsoon Red Sea trough and more rain over Ethiopia. However, there is conflicting evidence, one stating that it will only make the Indian summer monsoon wind more southwesterly, causing hot and humid weather along the Red Sea coast and the other stating that the monsoon will actually weaken.
2.3 Factors Influencing Red Sea Weather
Red Sea weather is influenced by factors which can be broadly divided into permanent geographical factors and transient synoptic scale factors. Permanent geographical factors which control the climate of the Red Sea and hence its weather include: the position of the sun which, at its zenith in August, and with the hotter hemisphere to the north, creates a high thermal low over the southern Red Sea and a deep tropospheric thermal inversion at around 1500m. This results in a consistent pattern of wind known as the monsoon wind which is steadiest over the southern Red Sea. It is this wind which controls the direction and temperature of the surface and subsurface water, and hence the air temperature. The presence of the northern semi-closed gyre which draws water from the Indian Ocean through the narrow southern Red Sea and around the eastern coast to create a pocket of high salinity surface water in the east. The hot arid coastal deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and North East Africa which lead to very high air temperatures and hence high potential evaporation and little cloud and precipitation. Temporary synoptic weather patterns are much more variable and result in very sudden changes in weather for short periods. These changes in weather are caused by the passage of upper air shortwaves and the Red Sea trough.
Troughs which particularly affect the northern and central Red Sea always occur when there is an active monsoon over the Indian subcontinent, longwave upper air easterly disturbances traverse the Asian continent and Arabian Sea and, on reaching the monsoon zone, now an area of high thermal low, result in deep convection and a strengthening of the surface monsoon wind. This, in turn, leads to a wind reversal and a depression of the Red Sea tropospheric thermal inversion with unstable weather lasting a few days to a week. During the winter months, there are occasions when polar air will penetrate the Red Sea basin from either the northwest or northeast. This too will result in a change of wind direction and a depression of the tropospheric thermal inversion, convection, and precipitation.
2.4 Impact of Climate Change on Red Sea Weather
The impact of climate change on the Red Sea weather patterns
The Red Sea is affected by the surrounding hot desert to the west and north throughout the year. The desert landmass causes the local Hadley cell to descend on the Red Sea from the north. This results in a sub-tropical arid climate. During the period from December to March, the Red Sea experiences the khamsin. The khamsin originates from a depression that moves eastwards across Europe and North Africa. This results in a south or southwesterly wind being deflected through the Nile Delta and across the Red Sea. The khamsin is characterized by strong winds and very dusty conditions. These conditions lead to reduced visibility, particularly near coastal areas. The increase in atmospheric dust from the khamsin results in increased direct and indirect radiative forcing. During the khamsin, higher temperatures are also brought to the Red Sea due to the winds originating from the African deserts. The general weather and climate conditions of the Red Sea have a major effect on local maritime affairs and safety.
Global climate models predict that there will be an increase in Arabian and African desertification throughout the 21st century. This will result in an increase in the frequency of the khamsin over the Red Sea, exposing an increasing number of people to hazardous conditions. More dust in the atmosphere will increase the radiative forcing and alter the balance between solar radiation and long-wave radiation. Increased temperatures on the sea surface and in the lower troposphere will lead to changes in the thermodynamic state of the lower atmosphere. This will have implications on the strength and direction of the winds. Winter winds will be brought from the northern continental areas, and thermally driven summer winds will increase. It is also expected that El Nino and Southern Oscillation teleconnections will result in increased variability of weather patterns in the Red Sea.
3. Implications for Maritime Safety in the Red Sea
The most common forms of accidents in the Red Sea are groundings and collisions. From statistics of the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment, an average of about 35 ships are involved in marine accidents annually. This is an average of 5% of annual ship calls. This is quite high, so effective management of these accidents and prevention has major benefits for the states involved. Groundings are most common in a few regions notoriously known for shallow water and/or narrow sea lanes. Collisions usually involve other vessels and are most prevalent in the southern entrance to the Suez Canal.
In the busy waters of the Red Sea, maritime safety is of great importance. It is an area of intense shipping traffic, with over 7000 vessels traversing its waters every year (UNCTAD and IMO, 2006). The Red Sea waters are a vital international sea route, linking European and Asian markets. It connects the Mediterranean Sea and has an extensive connection with the Indian Ocean. Due to this, the Red Sea is also a link between East and West. It is the shortest sea route between markets of the Arabian Peninsula and African and European markets. Therefore, it has significant economic and strategic importance.
3.1 Importance of Maritime Safety
In the days when ships were the primary means of communication, trade, and cultural exchange of different civilizations, the "Navegatio Sancti Brendani" related the fantastic voyages of the early Irish monks to the Hebrides Islands. The voyage of St. Brendan the Navigator is essentially a tale of a pilgrimage taken by the saint and his fellow monks to seek the "Promised Land", theorized to be the Canadian Coast (Eltit, n.d.). This story is a solid example of how important maritime safety is, with Brendan having faced an entire array of natural hazards and disasters that would deter men of lesser faith and determination. Today, the importance of the safety of ships, seafarers, and passengers is no less significant than in Brendan's time.
Despite the fact that trade and international shipping bring about crucial economic viability to national states, it remains a highly hazardous international endeavor. The global nature of shipping means that the industry is operating in various different areas around the world, many times different from the home port country of the vessel. This can pose a problem as there are often big disparities between the types and levels of control exercised by some countries on various safety, health, and environmental issues. Such differences can lead to a lack of proper international safety standards in certain regions, a serious problem for a global industry. The result is that the international shipping industry is potentially facing a higher probability of accidents and incidents.
3.2 Current Challenges and Risks
Risk is determined by the joint consideration of the probability of an event occurring and the magnitude of the consequences. In this regard, it is possible to identify a spectrum of risks facing Red Sea maritime activities in the fields of oil production, desalination, minerals processing, tourism, and commercial shipping. At one end of the spectrum, there is considered to be the low probability, but potentially high impact event of a regional war involving closure of the Suez Canal for an extended period. It is assessed that such an event would lead to increased shipping in the Red Sea, particularly in the Gulf of Suez, and the Straits of Tiran at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. These factors involve a different set of risks, associated with increased strategic importance and potential targeting of ships or oil installations. An entirely different but also high impact set of risk factors are those associated with tourism. High among these is the risk of damage to the coral reefs, such as that caused by the 1996 grounding of the Jolley Blear, as coral damage has long-lasting effects and is of critical importance to both the ecology and tourism industries. Impact from climate change and climate variability would exacerbate risks in many sectors by adding an additional and unfamiliar environmental stressor. This could result in the increased occurrence of certain hazards, such as the likelihood of tropical storms with the projected northward movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Beyond assessment of the likelihood and impacts of specific events, it is important to note that many of the risks identified are transitory in nature and are likely to change in both probability and magnitude as global and regional conditions change.
3.3 Climate Change-Related Hazards
In the advent of climate change, it is highly likely that the severity and frequency of extreme weather events will increase. Subtropical regions like the Red Sea that are already vulnerable to a range of extreme weather events are likely to experience more frequent and intense events. For instance, the GCCA report suggests that most of the Red Sea region will experience higher temperatures, while Djibouti and Northern Somalia will experience higher rainfall and more intense tropical cyclones. Changes in wind patterns and increased frequency of regional Red Sea trough events are also expected. This will have serious implications for maritime safety.
Increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events can be expected to disrupt shipping operations and increase the risk of a maritime accident occurring. With oil transportation being one of the principal shipping activities in the Red Sea, the risk of an oil spill occurring would have serious environmental consequences. This is of particular concern because a large proportion of incidents involving oil tankers occurs during poor weather.
3.4 Strategies for Enhancing Maritime Safety
Ship routing strategies and methods can be combined with the latest forecasting and warning systems to develop an effective mechanism to avoid hazards and untoward incidents. The impact of climate change on wind and precipitation is the main climate variables that will affect safe navigation for ships. Navigation is adversely affected by a reduction in wind-driven ocean currents, which are the primary means of moving surface water around the globe. With less current, it is more difficult to move a ship through the water due to the lesser available energy to move the ship. Any decreases in wind can adversely affect air and marine transportation. By developing an understanding of how climate change will affect the marine environment and aggregating the changes into probable impacts on marine operations, it is possible to develop navigation safety thresholds for climatological variables. This information can be incorporated into ship routing decisions in a similar fashion to present-day ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) based oceanic climate forecasts. An example is provided by work WMO is doing on providing climate and environmental information services for marine transportation. This should also facilitate the development of predictive risk indices for various marine operations, which can be used in the design of insurance and risk management schemes. The final aspect of climate change mitigation measures is carbon emission reduction. It has been suggested that the ideal way to do this is to develop a carbon label for ships, in a similar fashion to food and other produce. This would rate ships on their emission cleanliness and would give consumers the ability to choose low carbon transport methods.
4. Conclusion
The recent climatic data of the Red Sea shows an increase in air temperature for both the summer and the winter seasons, with the greatest increase seen in the summer seasons between the years 1978 and 1994. The humidity for the same period shows a similar increase, particularly in the central and northern Red Sea, with the appearance of a cyclonic pattern which has also increased in intensity over the years. This climatic variability has had an impact on the microphysics of the Red Sea weather system and has modified the intensity and location of the rain pattern. These meteorological changes are primarily due to the increase in temperatures and are in turn affected by oceanographic changes, particularly sea surface temperatures. This has implications for marine operations in the Red Sea and will be discussed in subsequent papers. A final note should make is that while no direct connection has been made between weather and climate change in the Red Sea, and anthropogenic effects on weather are difficult to prove, the changes observed over the past 20 years correspond to an increase in global temperatures and are likely to be a result of climate change."
"Red Sea weather is influenced primarily by wind, air temperature, and humidity, and the seasonal and interannual variability of these meteorological parameters. A total of 54 meteorological stations around the Red Sea have been established during the last 100 years, although many have only a few years of observations. Establishing exact temporal and spatial climates around the Red Sea is difficult, but it is generally agreed upon that there are two distinct seasons: a winter period of October to March, and a summer period in the remaining months. The seasonal variability of the upper level Red Sea wind over the last 90 years has been obtained from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Although this period shows an overall decrease in wind strength, it is agreed that the wind speed in the Red Sea over the past 40 years has weakened.
4.1 Summary of Findings
Stronger prevailing winds could make sailing the transit route between the Suez Canal and Bab el Mandeb difficult, and any vessel waiting to cross the Red Sea could be delayed in a safe port until the time the wind subsides. This region is already a hazard due to the wind-driven open ocean current, and the possibility of increased wind speed would exacerbate the current sea state given a similar wind direction. Any adverse wind effect on the crossing vessels could cause discomfort to the crew and potential damage to goods in unfavorable sea conditions. The vessels may also have to alter heading and speed to maintain a desired track, increased deviation from prevailing routes will cost time and money.
An increase in wind strength in coastal areas would be detrimental to any vessel seeking to make port as increased wind strength = increased resistance through water = increase in fuel consumption for maneuvering in, out, and within port to berth. This could result in increased fuel costs for shipping companies or potentially increased port fees if it's passed onto the consumer.
Change in location and strength of the many weather systems will greatly affect the wind and the frequency of wind reversals. This has already been identified as a major source of mariners' complaints. The major implications of this are to the shipping industry.
From the above discussion, we can make the following conclusions:
During the summer months (June-September), the Red Sea is affected by the Indian monsoon through the wind stress it generates. Change in the strength of the Indian monsoon under global warming has been regarded as a robust feature of the climate change scenarios. It has been reported that in a multi-model ensemble with increased CO2 forcing, the Arabian Sea History Monsoon project (1850-1998) depicts an increase in Indian summer monsoon rainfall. Our model result suggests that an increase in CO2 forcing would lead to the strengthening of the Indian monsoon and hence the wind stress forcing of the western Red Sea. This could be potentially hazardous to vessels if combined with the rough seas due to the increased wind strength. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ships have the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters of any coastal states. However, the littoral states could enforce certain regulations due to the safety of the marine environment under articles 236 to 238. This could impose on Indian vessels to seek safe shelter from the monsoon winds, since the increased wind strength and potentially rough sea could threaten damage to goods and equipment on board if compared to the present situation.
This study has made an attempt to analyze the effects of climate change on the weather pattern of the Red Sea region and its implications for navigation. For achieving this aim, we have studied the various weather systems of the Red Sea using QuikSCAT data and investigated the association of these weather patterns with the climatic parameters of the Red Sea. Having done this, we have employed the output of a state-of-the-art climate model, high-resolution regional climate model (HIRHAM4), to study the impact of future climate change on its weather patterns. Finally, this output has been used to examine the implications of changing weather patterns on navigation in the Red Sea.
4.2 Recommendations for Future Research
The authors suggest that this paper can generate valuable guidance for several aspects of future work. Many were initiated during the course of this project and it is hoped that they can be extended in the near future. These include the use of regional climate models for the Red Sea; the collection and dissemination of high quality atmospheric observations; and the monitoring and prediction of weather and wave conditions by divers and marine tour operators. All of these activities require further international collaboration in order to maximise the benefits. Model inter-comparison projects are an effective way of achieving rapid progress in the assessment of regional climate simulations. The participating groups can diagnose model deficiencies and learn from each other in the process of analysing common output using standard procedures. This approach has been highly successful in recent European projects such as PRUDENCE and it is recommended that an analogous project should be initiated for the Red Sea region. High quality atmospheric observations are imperative for the future development of NWP systems and reliable climate models. The authors were heavily reliant on the Jeddah airport soundings in an attempt to monitor predicted conditions and provide verification for the ERA40 reanalysis. Due to the lack of alternative data, an intensive observing period would be required for meaningful verification in a future study. These observations would also be highly beneficial for the assessment of regional climate model performance.

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Tags: Climate Change, Maritime safety, Red Sea, The Impact of Climate Change on Red Sea Weather Patterns and Its Implications for Maritime Safety