A contribution to the climatic studies on Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The climate of Saudi Arabia has not been studied in any detail and this thesis is an attempt to analyse the general climatic conditions of the country. Chapter I comments on the difficulties that are manifest in climatic studies of the area and also refers to work that has been carried out on some parts of the country. Specifically, the chapter is concerned with the needs for more detailed and comprehensive climatic research on Saudi Arabia. A number of geographical factors are considered, in chapter II, Ito affect the distribution of the climatic elements:-the latitude, the geographical location relative to the land masses, the position relative to the waterbodies and the altitude. Chapter III is a brief description of the topgraphy of the study area. Subdivision into topographic units of Saudi Arabia is made on the basis of variations in elevations and type of landscape. Air masses and fronts and the pressure systems that dominate the country in winter and summer, are discussed in some detail in chapter IV. Some references to the winter and summer depressions are also made in this chapter. In chapter V an attempt is made to describe the velocity and direction of winds. According to their directions, they are classified into three types - the north-west, the south-east monsoon and the south-west monsoon. Special consideration is placed on the phenomenon of sand and dust storms as a climatic factor affecting visibility. In chapters VI and VII air temperatures and precipitation have been considered in some detail but, unfortunately a full treatment is not possible due to lack of data. However, while inter-seasonal variations in temperature were found to be large, intra-seasonal conditions seem to be comparatively uniform. Most of rainfall, although low, occurs in the winter season. It is very variable from one year, to another and also varies in incidence spatially. The only area which receives relatively high constant precipitation is the high land of the south-west region of Saudi Arabia. The study concludes in chapter VIII by classifying Saudi Arabia into climatic regions on the basis of Koppen's system. While a major part of the country is classified as an extremely arid region, limited areas in the mountainous south-west exhibit considerable climatic variations.