Variation of surface water vapor pressure and refractivity over the Arabian peninsula

Abstract EN

The prevailing situation in the Arabian peninsula after the Gulf war has had some impact on the meteorological conditions, that in turn has affected the radio refractivity in the region.

In this paper an attempt is made to study the annual, monthly, and diurnal behavior of surface water vapor pressure and radio refractivity at twenty locations in the Arabian peninsula.

Daily average meteorological data for a period of approximately 17 years is used.

In this study it is found that coastal locations show higher values of both the parameters compared to inland locations.

However, the northern sites have higher values of surface water vapor pressure and refractivity than the southern region sites.

A contour map is also presented which is useful for interpolating or extrapolating the surface refractivity values at locations where the data is not available.

In addition, a study on the assessment of the impact of the burning of Kuwaiti oil fields on the surface refractivity in the region has been initiated.