2026-07-03T07:20:18+00:00

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Shafaq News-
Baghdad

Maximum and
minimum temperatures across Iraq have risen sharply over the past six decades,
with daytime highs now reaching 44-47°C across much of the country’s central
and southern regions, the Climate and Scientific Research Center at the Iraqi
Meteorological Organization and Seismology reported on Thursday.

Its weekly
analysis, covering June 25 to July 1, compared current conditions with climate
records from 1966 and 1996. It found that areas once dominated by 36-39°C
daytime temperatures have largely disappeared from central and southern Iraq,
retreating to limited parts of the western region as hotter conditions became
increasingly widespread.

Nighttime
temperatures have followed a similar pattern, with minimum readings that ranged
between 23°C and 27°C across most of Iraq in 1966 rising to 28-32°C across much
of the central and southern provinces by 2026, although parts of the central
and northern regions recorded a slight decline compared with 1996.

Read more: Iraq’s Green Belt: The race to forestall desertification

The center
attributed the long-term warming trend to global climate change, rising
greenhouse gas concentrations, urban expansion, and shrinking vegetation cover,
noting that the findings support planning for climate adaptation, agriculture,
water resources, and urban development.

The United
Nations ranks Iraq among the world’s five countries most vulnerable to climate
extremes. According to the Green Iraq Observatory, 96.5 million dunams (9.65
million hectares), or 55.5% of the country’s land, are at risk of
desertification, while 40.4 million dunams (4.04 million hectares), or 23.2%,
have already become desertified —an increase of nearly 49% since 2021. The
observatory estimates that salinity and land degradation destroy about 100,000
dunams (10,000 hectares) of farmland each year, with Dhi Qar, Maysan,
Al-Muthanna, and Al-Diwaniyah among the hardest-hit provinces.

Read more: Beyond 50°C: How decades of conflict are heating Iraq