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

Trends and influences on air and sea surface temperatures in Kuwait and the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Trends and influences on air and sea surface temperatures in Kuwait and the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf Carl L. Amos, Hachem Kassem, Thamer Al-Rashidi This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract 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. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Tables 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section. Supplementary Files Table1final.docx TABLE 1. Monthly air temperature anomalies (i.e. value – long term mean, o C) for Kuwait International aiport. The results show warm winters from 1962 – 1983, relatively cold periods from 1983 to 1994 and 2001 to 2006. A general warming throughout the year. Also shown is the annual national energy consumption in TWhours. Note that there are anomalously warm and cold months scattered throughout the time series; rarely is every month of a given year anomalously warm or cold. Also note the trend in warming parallels the increase in Kuwait national energy consumption. Table2final.docx TABLE 2. A summary table of the rate of change in mean air temperature ( o C/decade) during each month of the year for Kuwait before and after 1990, together with SST trends of the northern Gulf. Warming over the entire year is evident in both the air and seawater temperatures. Note that warming of air (0.96±0.18 o C/decade) post 1990 is in contrast to cooling that was apparent prior to that year (-0.14±0.38 o C). Also note that SST warming post 1991 was much greater than prior to that date and about one third of the warming of air. Table3final.docx TABLE 3 (A) The principal component analysis of key monthly variables in the Kuwait/northern Gulf region between 1965 and mid 2023 (700 degrees of freedom). PC1 (that explains 26.9% of the variance) shows a strong positive relationship between SST, IOD, AMO, CO 2 , TWh (energy consumption in Kuwait) and air temp (Kuwait) and an inverse relationship with NAO; and (B) the correlation matrix of the PCA analysis showing that TWh and air temperature are the best predictors of SST in the northern Gulf. (C) The principal component analysis of key monthly variables in the analysis of SST in the northern Gulf between 2002 and mid 2023 (the so-called “satellite era”, 246 degrees of freedom). This analysis includes dust deposition (northern Kuwait) and ground temperature (terrestrial Kuwait) as variables. PC1 (that explains 30.3% of the variance) shows a strong relationship between SST, TWh, air temperature, and ground temperature. The role of CO 2 curiously appears to be less important in this latter time period. (D) The correlation matrix of the PCA analysis of the shorter time period showing that SST is strongly linked to TWh, air temperature, and ground temperature (suggesting a strong heat exchange) and inversely related to NAO, dust deposition, and sun spot activity. Table4final.docx TABLE 4 Mean monthly sea surface temperature anomalies for the northern Gulf from 1950 – 2023 based on the HadSST1.1 data set. Also shown is the annual Kuwait GDP. Note that there appears to be cycles of warming/cooling on an approximate 10 year period from 1950 to 2000. Post 2000 the warming appears to intensify in parallel with increases in Kuwait GDP. Notice that warming is not consistent throughout a given year, but is variable from month to month. Only since 2015 does warming appear to be consistent over a given year. Table5final.docx TABLE 5. A summary table of the output of mean monthly energy sources/sinks (in W/m 2 ) from the heat box model of this study compared with estimates from SA94 and AA23. All parameters listed are described in the text. Q resid is the difference between gains and losses of energy estimated in the model (-3.08±0.8 W/m 2 ). There are overall similarities with SA94 (Q resid = 28.5 W/m 2 ) and AA23 (Q resid = 31 W/m 2 ). however there is a significant reduction herein in Q resid . The largest differences results from the use of a lower wind speed (0.25U 10 ) herein, which results in a lower rate of evaporation of seawater (0.57 m/year) predicted from this study. APPENDIX.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6997818","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":484780424,"identity":"c3e0a78b-1c09-4426-a2ce-4797b514e4c3","order_by":0,"name":"Carl L. Amos","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA1ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYHACxgMPQBR7A5AwsCBOz4EEEMlzAKRFghQtEhCSsHL+9rMPDiTUbJOTn/n86oYfBRJAke4EvFokzqQbHEg4dtvY4HZO2c0eoMMkzpzdgFeLAUMa0GFstxM3SOek3eABajGQyCWghf8ZUMu/24nzZ55Ju/mHKC0SQFsS224nNtxgP3abKFskbgBtSewD+uVMDtttGQMJHoJ+4e9PY3zw4dttOfn2489uvvljI8ff3otfCxLgMQCTxCoHAfYHpKgeBaNgFIyCEQQAfqBMc3jysA4AAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"University of Southampton","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Carl","middleName":"L.","lastName":"Amos","suffix":""},{"id":484780428,"identity":"dd6a7531-1e8c-46cf-a471-06a58b1951c3","order_by":1,"name":"Hachem Kassem","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Southampton","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hachem","middleName":"","lastName":"Kassem","suffix":""},{"id":484780435,"identity":"8085132a-7fb5-4b35-9cb1-8c8e4260eb0f","order_by":2,"name":"Thamer Al-Rashidi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Thamer","middleName":"","lastName":"Al-Rashidi","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-06-28 12:38:07","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":94597639,"identity":"c53807f7-9274-45f8-82f2-7c516e33d083","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-28 18:48:25","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":491413,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"KuwaitSST13.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1_covered_45976de5-b09d-4622-b74d-ae0f82fd4a63.pdf"},{"id":86795361,"identity":"4bda5ac7-f830-495d-b709-7bc39b4fb232","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:32:02","extension":"docx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":45932,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTABLE 1. Monthly air temperature anomalies (i.e. value – long term mean, \u003csup\u003eo\u003c/sup\u003eC) for Kuwait International aiport. The results show warm winters from 1962 – 1983, relatively cold periods from 1983 to 1994 and 2001 to 2006. A general warming throughout the year. Also shown is the annual national energy consumption in TWhours. Note that there are anomalously warm and cold months scattered throughout the time series; rarely is every month of a given year anomalously warm or cold. Also note the trend in warming parallels the increase in Kuwait national energy consumption.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Table1final.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/e739e9f79c07db9134d45802.docx"},{"id":86796470,"identity":"b3923b96-cb82-463c-a74c-8737064159e5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:48:02","extension":"docx","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":15132,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTABLE 2. A summary table of the rate of change in mean air temperature (\u003csup\u003eo \u003c/sup\u003eC/decade) during each month of the year for Kuwait before and after 1990, together with SST trends of the northern Gulf. Warming over the entire year is evident in both the air and seawater temperatures. Note that warming of air (0.96±0.18\u003csup\u003eo \u003c/sup\u003eC/decade) post 1990 is in contrast to cooling that was apparent prior to that year (-0.14±0.38\u003csup\u003eo\u003c/sup\u003eC). Also note that SST warming post 1991 was much greater than prior to that date and about one third of the warming of air.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Table2final.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/2634e81117232e5070335017.docx"},{"id":86796469,"identity":"02c06b64-c044-4f53-98d9-a846182464d7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:48:02","extension":"docx","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":31921,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTABLE 3 (A) The principal component analysis of key monthly variables in the Kuwait/northern Gulf region between 1965 and mid 2023 (700 degrees of freedom). PC1 (that explains 26.9% of the variance) shows a strong positive relationship between SST, IOD, AMO, CO\u003csub\u003e2\u003c/sub\u003e, TWh (energy consumption in Kuwait)\u0026nbsp; and air temp (Kuwait) and an inverse relationship with NAO; and (B) the correlation matrix of the PCA analysis showing that TWh and air temperature are the best predictors of SST in the northern Gulf. (C) The principal component analysis of key monthly variables in the analysis of SST in the northern Gulf between 2002 and mid 2023 (the so-called “satellite era”, 246 degrees of freedom). This analysis includes dust deposition (northern Kuwait) and ground temperature (terrestrial Kuwait) as variables. PC1 (that explains 30.3% of the variance) shows a strong relationship between SST, TWh, air temperature, and ground temperature. The role of CO\u003csub\u003e2\u003c/sub\u003e curiously appears to be less important in this latter time period. (D) The correlation matrix of the PCA analysis of the shorter time period showing that SST is strongly linked to TWh, air temperature, and ground temperature (suggesting a strong heat exchange) and inversely related to NAO, dust deposition, and sun spot activity.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Table3final.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/1d6c4d69c6df6787e299c112.docx"},{"id":86796126,"identity":"bc18e852-a6f1-45bc-b478-b94e5fa3d771","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:40:02","extension":"docx","order_by":4,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":52032,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTABLE 4 Mean monthly sea surface temperature anomalies for the northern Gulf from 1950 – 2023 based on the HadSST1.1 data set. Also shown is the annual Kuwait GDP. Note that there appears to be cycles of warming/cooling on an approximate 10 year period from 1950 to 2000. Post 2000 the warming appears to intensify in parallel with increases in Kuwait GDP. Notice that warming is not consistent throughout a given year, but is variable from month to month. Only since 2015 does warming appear to be consistent over a given year.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Table4final.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/f685c610020d3d2057b25fa8.docx"},{"id":86795367,"identity":"0ab9a5c1-7fb0-479f-9686-1ce58c77d654","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:32:02","extension":"docx","order_by":5,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":19594,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTABLE 5. A summary table of the output of mean monthly energy sources/sinks (in W/m\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e) from the heat box model of this study compared with estimates from SA94 and AA23. All parameters listed are described in the text. Q\u003csub\u003eresid\u003c/sub\u003e is the difference between gains and losses of energy estimated in the model (-3.08±0.8 W/m\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e). There are overall similarities with SA94 (Q\u003csub\u003eresid\u003c/sub\u003e = 28.5 W/m\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e) and AA23 (Q\u003csub\u003eresid \u003c/sub\u003e= 31 W/m\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e). however there is a significant reduction herein in Q\u003csub\u003eresid\u003c/sub\u003e. The largest differences results from the use of a lower wind speed (0.25U\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e) herein, which results in a lower rate of evaporation of seawater (0.57 m/year) predicted from this study.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Table5final.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/40fa47ba0fe8e7f1682d2acd.docx"},{"id":86795373,"identity":"4d69a4a6-6726-4332-ba34-28e85922d596","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-15 15:32:02","extension":"docx","order_by":6,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":18424,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"APPENDIX.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6997818/v1/90c86e424dab9870fd723920.docx"}],"financialInterests":"\u003cp\u003eNo competing interests reported.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTables 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e","formattedTitle":"Trends and influences on air and sea surface temperatures in Kuwait and the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe 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\u003csup\u003eo\u003c/sup\u003eC/decade. Night-time air temperature trends in Kuwait also show systematic warming since 1991 (up to 1.14\u003csup\u003eo\u003c/sup\u003eC/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\u003csub\u003e2\u003c/sub\u003e 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\u003csup\u003eo\u003c/sup\u003eC) were found by balancing incoming and outgoing energy, resulting in a residual heat estimate of 3.1 W/m\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e. 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.\u0026nbsp; 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.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Trends and influences on air and sea surface temperatures in Kuwait and the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-07-15 15:31:57","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6997818/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"d2c85ed4-5d11-4fd9-9d5a-0e9335173b4d","owner":[],"postedDate":"July 15th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-10-28T18:04:34+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-07-15 15:31:57","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6997818","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6997818","identity":"rs-6997818","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}