Climatologists and geologists, after analyzing the climatic history of the Middle East over the past one hundred and thirty thousand years, have suggested that the drought could continue for another ten thousand years.
According to the representative of the University of Miami Sevag Mehteryan, the governments of the Middle Eastern states prefer to think that the climate that is observed at the present time is just a temporary anomaly, and that water will return to the region in the very near future. However, research by scientists suggests that in reality the situation is completely different, and the level of precipitation in the future will fall even more, and the frequency of the main source of moisture in the region - Mediterranean thunderstorms - will decrease.
Many historians and climatologists are trying to find out how, in past historical eras, climatic fluctuations could influence the course of history. In particular, relatively recently it was established that the cold snap that occurred in the seventh century AD could have caused an epidemic of plague in Byzantium and laid the foundations for the power of the Arab Caliphate. In addition, it could also have forced the Mongols in the early thirteenth century to cease their advance into European territories.
Some scholars now argue that the most recent such event can be considered the "Arab Spring" and the war in the Middle East, which were triggered by the drought that began in 2009 and the lack of food and vital goods associated with it.
A group of scientists led by Mehteryan found that the modern drought has deep historical roots. They came to this conclusion after studying climatic changes in the Middle East at the end of the Ice Age and analyzing the isotopic composition of stalagmites in one of the caves in northwestern Iran.
According to the researchers, the process of stalagmites formation inside the caves occurs almost continuously due to the movement of streams and water droplets that flow down the ceiling and walls. In turn, this water enters the caves from the surface. Therefore, its isotopic composition may reflect the peculiarities of the climate that prevailed during the formation of various layers of stalagmites.
So, in particular, after taking measurements of oxygen-18 levels in the matter of stalagmites, researchers can determine not only the probable level of precipitation in different historical epochs, but also establish the temperature at which the formation of different layers of cave sediments took place, and on the basis of these data determine how strongly the Sun illuminated the surface of a given region at that time.
After analyzing the history of the formation of stalagmites in the Iranian Kale Kord cave over the past 130 thousand years, scientists were able to determine very interesting fluctuations in climatic fluctuations over several thousand years, repeating what was found during the study of ice samples from Greenland. Thus, scientists came to the conclusion that the climate of the Middle East and North Atlantic was controlled by common mechanisms and was inextricably linked.
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These climatic fluctuations, which were probably associated with changes in the movement in the orbit of our planet or with fluctuations in the movement of ocean currents, provoked a kind of "switching" of the Middle East climate, which after several thousand years became either relatively cold, but wet, or arid. but warm.
According to the observations of scientists, the Middle East is currently in the next "dry" period, which will last approximately ten thousand years. It is for this reason that one may not even think that in the near future the problems with access to water will be solved by themselves.