Cyclone Shaheen: A reminder of the Arabian Peninsula’s vulnerability to extreme weather events

On Oct. 3 Cyclone Shaheen made landfall in Oman, close to Muscat, after touring by way of the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea. In response to the India Meteorological Division, which screens and tracks the formation of cyclones within the North Indian Ocean, Cyclone Shaheen was categorized as a extreme cyclonic storm when it made landfall with sustained winds of 70 miles per hour. Its arrival introduced on heavy rainfall and extreme flooding within the many valleys which are a pure a part of Oman’s topography. The excessive winds of the cyclone generated huge storm surges alongside the coast and induced severe injury to infrastructure and houses, displacing many. The demise toll from these storm impacts in Oman alone is a minimum of 14 folks with the chance of that quantity growing within the coming days. Surrounding international locations have additionally felt the consequences of this very extreme cyclone, within the type of enhanced rainfall and winds within the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the latter struggling structural damages, accidents, and fatalities.

It isn’t unusual for tropical cyclones to kind within the north Indian Ocean on the southeastern Arabian Sea. The mix of heat sea floor temperatures in proximity to the equator (the place most photo voltaic radiation is absorbed by the earth) and excessive relative humidity (atmospheric moisture) creates appropriate situations essential to generate tropical cyclones west of India (with the Bay of Bengal offering related cyclone-conducive situations east of India).

Nearly half of the tropical cyclones which are generated within the Arabian Sea don’t make landfall, and most that do within the Arabian Peninsula turn out to be severely weakened, primarily downgraded in depth to a melancholy. Some cyclones journey additional west towards the Horn of Africa however are inclined to additionally lose depth in that trajectory as a result of comparatively cooler waters of the western Arabian Sea.

Oman and Yemen have traditionally been essentially the most impacted international locations within the peninsula from cyclone exercise as a result of size of their mixed shoreline on the Arabian Sea. Whereas only a few cyclonic storms make landfall in these two international locations on the greater degree of cyclone depth they could have possessed when shaped within the Arabian Sea, these storms nonetheless deliver with them the triumvirate of corresponding calamities: flooding, demise, and destruction.

When extreme tropical cyclones preserve their authentic depth at landfall, really catastrophic outcomes ensue. Cyclone Gonu struck the southeastern tip of Oman in June 2007 as a particularly extreme cyclonic storm after having been categorized as a brilliant cyclonic storm (the very best classification attainable of a tropical cyclone) within the Arabian Sea. It stays the strongest and most devastating tropical cyclone to ever land on the Arabian Peninsula. With wind speeds in extra of 100 miles per hour, heavy rainfall, inland flooding, and powerful coastal waves, Cyclone Gonu induced intensive injury and devastation to buildings and infrastructure together with widespread energy outages. The ultimate tally in value of damages and fatalities for Oman was $4 billion and 50 lives, respectively. It nonetheless stands because the worst pure catastrophe within the historical past of Oman.

What’s completely different about Cyclone Shaheen?

In comparison with important tropical cyclones of the previous that originate within the North Indian Ocean, the conduct of Cyclone Shaheen is considerably unprecedented within the trendy period and will signify a possible shift in how local weather change is influencing the formation of maximum climate occasions that may afflict the Center East. Two elements of Cyclone Shaheen are notably troubling in the event that they turn out to be a standard trait of future cyclones which will influence the Arabian Peninsula:

1. Persistence of the cyclone over land: Cyclone Shaheen was shaped within the Arabian Sea from the remnants of a earlier cyclone: Gulab. Cyclone Gulab originated within the Bay of Bengal earlier than touring west throughout India, progressively downgrading in depth to a melancholy. As a substitute of totally dissipating after dropping a lot of its depth, the remnants of Cyclone Gulab reenergized within the Arabian Sea and moved west into the Gulf of Oman. Because it started to enter the Gulf of Oman, Cyclone Shaheen turned a really extreme cyclonic storm, making it a stronger cyclone with sooner windspeeds than the unique cyclone (Gulab) from which it sprang. Cyclone Gulab/Shaheen’s exceptional path from the Bay of Bengal throughout the width of India and over the Arabian Sea to Oman has solely been evidenced twice in trendy historical past: in 1921 and 1959. And in neither of these cases did the cyclone make landfall as a really extreme cyclonic storm like Cyclone Shaheen.
2. Motion of the cyclone past the Arabian Sea: Only a few of the tropical cyclones that originate from the Arabian Sea journey into the Gulf of Oman, and even fewer make landfall within the Arabian Peninsula as a really extreme cyclonic storm after traversing the Gulf of Oman. Excluding Cyclone Gonu (the place landfall occurred on the southeastern tip of Oman earlier than the cyclone traveled the Gulf of Oman and dissipated in Iran), there are solely two data of extreme cyclones transferring from the Arabian Sea into the Gulf of Oman and making landfall in northern Oman (close to Muscat). The primary was in June 1890. The second? Cyclone Shaheen, over 130 years later.

Historically, tropical cyclones forming within the Arabian Sea don’t journey past the Gulf of Oman or deep inland throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The dry air and decreased moisture over the Arabian Peninsula compared to the Indian Ocean is an obstacle to that sort of cyclone trajectory, robbing a probably extreme cyclone of its depth and accelerating its eventual dissipation. However the elevated warming of the oceans and seas close to the equator as evidenced by rising sea floor temperatures, coupled with local weather projections of elevated international warming sooner or later, indicators the potential of extra frequent and intense cyclones touchdown properly into the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding areas. This makes Cyclone Shaheen each a reminder of the peninsula’s vulnerability to excessive climate occasions and an early indicator of how local weather change is exacerbating that vulnerability.

Mohammed Mahmoud is the director of the Local weather and Water Program and a senior fellow on the Center East Institute. The opinions expressed on this piece are his personal.

Photograph by HAITHAM AL-SHUKAIRI/AFP by way of Getty Photographs