Floods in the Gulf of Mexico show that the region urgently needs to take climate protection measures

Dubai, with its glittering skyline and resort island coastline, can seem like another world, but the unprecedented rains that hit the Middle East’s most famous megacity last month were a reminder that extreme weather is a reality there too.

The mid-April storm – the worst to hit the United Arab Emirates in 75 years – flooded streets, closed highways and caused numerous cancellations and delays at Dubai International Airport, the busiest airport in the Middle East and the second busiest in the world.

But the consequences did not end there.

Other cities in the Emirates, such as Ras al-Khaimah and Sharjah, were also hit by flooding. The neighboring state of Oman is likely to have suffered the most from the effects of the storm.

Large parts of the east coast and Oman’s capital, Muscat, were flooded, causing numerous deaths, including ten schoolchildren who were trapped in a flood-hit vehicle.

At least 21 people died in Oman and another four people lost their lives due to flooding in the United Arab Emirates. Some parts of Oman received 230 millimeters of rain in a matter of days, while one part of the United Arab Emirates received 255 millimeters of rain in just one day.

Surprised by the magnitude of the storm, Emirati and Omani authorities closed offices and schools, urging citizens to be cautious and stay at home.

But experts say that even though this incident was noted for its deadly consequences, such cases of extreme weather should hardly come as a surprise in the age of climate change.

“The amount of precipitation from thunderstorms, such as those observed in the United Arab Emirates in recent days, is increasing particularly sharply with warming,” said Dim Coumou, a climatologist at the Free University of Amsterdam. Reuters Last month.

“This is because convection, the strong updrafts that accompany thunderstorms, increases in a warmer world.”

Other experts were less clear. A report by World Weather Attribution, an association of climatologists also known as WWA, pointed out that the region’s low rainfall and the resulting lack of data made it difficult to make a definitive analysis of the role of climate change.

Given this caveat, the group described its own assessment of flooding in Oman and the United Arab Emirates as subject to “high uncertainty,” but the WWA concluded: “We have no other explanation for a trend in the observations than the expectation that heavy rainfall will increase in a warmer climate.”

The researchers behind the WWA report included scientists from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, underscoring global interest in the link between climate change and extreme weather events.

Saudi Arabia is particularly affected: just two weeks after the chaos in Oman and the United Arab Emirates, large parts of the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast were hit by floods. Schools had to be closed in Jeddah, Khulais, Medina and Rabigh, and the streets of Saudi Arabia turned into rivers.

In some ways, this problem is nothing new. The same part of Saudi Arabia experienced severe storms last year and the year before, when cars were swept away by floodwaters and two people died.

In other parts of the world, the devastation is even worse: flash floods have claimed lives in the Middle East and North Africa.

The most notorious example occurred in September 2023, when a storm exacerbated by climate change caused two dams in Libya to burst, killing 6,000 people.

A video that was circulated at the time, supposedly showing the Libyan disaster, was in fact a recording of floods in Saudi Arabia in 2016.

What is striking is the extent to which countries such as Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had the opportunity to prepare for extreme weather but failed to do so.

While Libya may attribute its lack of preparation for the September 2023 tragedy to political dysfunctionality and a lack of resources, the countries of the Persian Gulf enjoy political stability, great wealth and a wealth of scientific knowledge. Petrodollar-funded academic institutions such as the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology near Jeddah house some of the world’s leading scientists working on climate change in state-of-the-art research centers.

But fundamental problems remain unsolved. In 2009, the mayor of Jeddah attributed a flood that claimed over 100 lives to a banal problem: inadequate drainage of the city.

In 2015, Saudi authorities again acknowledged that Jeddah suffered from a “lack of adequate rainwater drainage systems” and “comprehensive water drainage in streets and tunnels.”

Although the regional authorities had already undertaken several ambitious projects to improve drainage at that time, the recent floods show that the problem is far from being solved.

The situation is hardly better in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The WWA report found: “In both countries, a high proportion of surfaces with limited permeability and absorption capacity due to urban development, inadequate drainage and extremely dry soils exacerbate the risk and severity of flash floods.” The authors called for “more proactive urban planning.”

While the Gulf energy superpowers are pouring money into so-called environmentally friendly smart cities, cities like Dubai, Jeddah and Muscat urgently need investments to protect them from climate change.

Although fundamental issues like drainage do not have the glamorous appeal of Neom, they have already proven to be a matter of life and death.