State of the Climate in the Arab Region 2024

The Arab region comprises 22 countries spanning a large and geographically diverse area of approximately 13 million square kilometres. It includes parts of North Africa, the Near East, the Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa. The region’s topography ranges from low-lying plains below 100 m in elevation to mountainous areas exceeding 4,000 m, such as the Atlas Mountains. The climate is predominantly arid to semi-arid, with notable variation across subregions. In North Africa, countries bordering the Mediterranean—Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt—experience a Mediterranean climate along the coast, with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Inland areas, particularly the Sahara Desert, are hyper-arid, characterized by extreme heat, low precipitation, and significant diurnal temperature ranges. East African countries within the region, including Somalia, Sudan, and Djibouti feature arid to semi-arid conditions with high temperatures and limited rainfall. The Comoros has a tropical, humid climate with rainfall throughout the year. The Near East, including Iraq and the Levant, is shaped by mountains, plateaus, and fertile river valleys. While mountainous areas receive snow in winter, inland zones such as the Syrian Desert remain dry year-round with hot summers and cold winters. The Arabian Peninsula comprises of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait and is one of the driest areas in the world. Most of the Peninsula consists of hyper-arid desert, with extremely hot summers and erratic rainfall. However, monsoonal influences bring additional precipitation to the mountainous regions of southwest Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman.