KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)
Projections of atmospheric and oceanic processes in the Red Sea are informing the design of sustainable megacities being planned and built along its shores.
The Red Sea is a vital natural and economic resource both for the region and the world. Rapid population and industrial growth along the coast, along with the rising threats of global warming, have highlighted the need to build sustainable cities and maintain a healthy marine ecosystem. Saudi Arabia generates nearly one-fifth of its income from tourism, shipping, agriculture and fishing in the Red Sea, and gets 90 percent of its freshwater from desalinated seawater. These industries all rely upon atmospheric and oceanic conditions, which form part of a complex climate system about which very little was previously known.
An international team led by Ibrahim Hoteit, Professor of Earth Sciences and Engineering at KAUST, has combined expertise in weather, oceans, waves, air pollution, marine ecosystems and data visualization to create an all-in-one climate modeling system for the Red Sea region, using satellite and surface observations to refine the output. “By building expertise in a region instead of a discipline, we can understand circulation, ecosystems and climate in the Red Sea like never before,” says Hoteit.
The system, which was built on a supercomputer at KAUST, has generated the first high-resolution oceanic and atmospheric analyses of the region for the past 40 years, which revealed how natural processes in the Red Sea connect with the earth’s climate. “We were surprised to see the Indian monsoon’s role in seasonally reversing the overturning circulation in the Red Sea,” says Hoteit. “It has helped explain unusual summer chlorophyll blooms in the southern Red Sea.”
The modeling system can predict numerous processes, including ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, marine ecosystem behavior, the spread of air pollution and the potential path of an oil spill. This is already providing essential information to academia, government and industry in Saudi Arabia, supporting research into Red Sea biodiversity hotspots, environmental policymaking, renewable energy projects and flood protection. For example, their reconstruction of extreme wave heights along the shoreline guided the design of the sea wall that will protect the newly built King Abdullah Economic City.
Hoteit’s team continue to enhance the system’s performance and expand its capabilities, with a particular focus on forecasting at the seasonal timescale and high spatial resolution simulations of urban environments. “We want to turn this into an easy-to-use, online visualization tool to support local authorities and industry in solving environmental problems in the region,” he says.
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Interesting. Looks like they are taking the novel approach of analysing historical data to gain an understanding of climate change as opposed to starting with the assumption that Co2 is the control knob and building models to prove it – that is, to manipulate data to achieve their desired result, or am I reading this wrong? My one critique is “the rising threat of global warming” since for all we know, some warming may be beneficial.
Especially in view of this link:
https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2020/11/16/evidence-mounting-for-global-cooling-ahead-record-snowfalls-less-greenland-ice-loss-65
“IMAGE: KAUST RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A CLIMATE MODEL…”
Reading past that, I was looking for the “…worse than previously thought…” line, but it was absent.
“We want to turn this into an easy-to-use, online visualization tool to support local authorities and industry in solving environmental problems in the region,”
Looks like it’s a rather straight forward attempt to improve the forecasting of events in the region.
Just a suggestion, possibly building a new mega-city ABOVE sea level is better in the long term…
I got the impression that the cycles in the Red Sea are important and they are looking to ensure that the construction of cities, people living there, industry, etc. doesn’t adversely affect the maritime ecology, causing damage to the fishing industry, etc. and potentially affecting the climate/weather cycles in the Indian Ocean.
Not to mention possibly under-designing infrastructure because you thought the last 5 or 10 years was a good snapshot of forever.
“For example, their reconstruction of extreme wave heights along the shoreline guided the design of the sea wall that will protect the newly built King Abdullah Economic City.”
Planning for the sand traps at Al Murooj Golf Course was a piece of cake.
So the Red Sea got it’s name from the fierce algae blooms, which usually mark water overturning, and the algae turns reddish when it dies. The dead algae also stinks. It looks to me like a great plan for the Red Sea would be heightened water flow from the Med into the Dbjouti area. My idea for locating a city would be upwind from the stinking mess, but that’s just me.
To whatever extent their “climate modelling system” is dependent upon the fantasy climate control knob of CO2 is the extent their model, not being based on reality will fail. It is hard to tell if they are merely paying lip service to the words “climate” and “sustainable” or not.
Climate model predicted the parting of the Rea Sea but shows Moses did not make it all through. As always it was much worse than we thought.
“By building expertise in a region instead of a discipline, we can understand circulation, ecosystems and climate in the Red Sea like never before,” says Hoteit.
This is exactly what I have been advocating. A gradient from the tropics to the poles mean different latitude bands are going to experience different climate changes modulated by regional differences.
A single Global Average Temperature is a worthless indicator to design anything to. It has no value in determining what is going to happen anywhere specific. It was originally conjured to show that CO2 was the control knob for temperature. It provides a convenient propaganda instrument to convince everyone on earth that they are going to die.
I see “climate model” and my eyes roll back into my head- add COVID19 model to that. More ways to try and instill fear into the people.
Call me skeptical but it sounds like greentards trying to build a model and lay the groundwork to oppose future megacity development.
Why is a mega city a good idea?
Concentration of population means more land returned to the wild.
Plus, easier to watch and imprison (the real reason)
Hottest sea water on earth. Best coral. How is that possible?