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Regional and local climatic effects on the Dead-Sea evaporation

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Abstract

The natural evaporation in the Dead-Sea is a very important meteorological parameter to the local industries at Sdom. It was found that the pan evaporation in Sdom has recently increased by 20–25%. In this paper we explore the reasons for this increase. It is found that both large-scale and local climatic changes have contributed to the evaporation increase in the Dead Sea Valley. The large-scale (global) change potentially associated with the global warming, resulted in changes of the frequencies of some synoptic systems in the region. The local change is a result of the recent Dead-Sea drying, which reduced the local Dead-Sea breeze while intensifying the Mediterranean-Sea breeze penetrating the Dead Sea Valley. It is suggested that while the local effect was the dominant climatic change factor in the Dead-Sea Valley in the 1970–1990, the global effect becomes the dominant one in the more recent evaporation increase in the Dead-Sea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Haim Shafir & Pinhas Alpert

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  1. Haim Shafir
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  2. Pinhas Alpert
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Correspondence to Pinhas Alpert.

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Shafir, H., Alpert, P. Regional and local climatic effects on the Dead-Sea evaporation. Climatic Change 105, 455–468 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9892-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9892-8

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