Trends and influences on air and sea surface temperatures in Kuwait and the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf

The waters of the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf are amongst the hottest globally. Satellite measurements of sea surface temperature collected since 1991 indicate a warming trend up to 0.62 ^o C/decade. Night-time air temperature trends in Kuwait also show systematic warming since 1991 (up to 1.14 ^o C/decade). Annual average warming trends in air temperature are primarily associated with the AMO, SST, growth in national energy consumption and GDP of Kuwait. CO ₂ correlated with air temperature post 1991; prior to 1991 no correlation was found. A heat box model of the northern Gulf has been developed to explain observed mean monthly SST between 2002 and 2023. Reasonable approximations (± 0.81 ^o C) were found by balancing incoming and outgoing energy, resulting in a residual heat estimate of 3.1 W/m ² . The latent heat losses resulted in an estimated evaporation rate of 0.60 m/annum. This is between the estimates in the literature that vary from 0.2 to 2.1 m/annum. River discharge, dust deposition, seawater/ground exchanges, and air/seawater exchanges had secondary, but important effects on estimated SST. The proposal “that the transfer of heat from the highly urbanized regions of Kuwait is an important source of local coastal seawater heating” could not be demonstrated within a regional setting. However, the heating of ground and air in Kuwait is strongly linked to national energy consumption and is likely to continue regardless of other factors of global warming if the economy continues to expand.