Akeed - Media outlets, including Arab ones, exaggerated in holding ‘climate change’ responsible for the recent heavy rainfall and flash floods that killed 12 people and injured others in Jordan on Friday, November 13, 2018, about two weeks after the Dead Sea incident which also resulted in fatalities; killing 21 people, most of whom were schoolchildren.

Despite competent authorities regularly issuing weekly weather forecasts for cities across the Kingdom, some media outlets continued confusing the terms ‘weather instability’ ‘low-pressure’ and ‘climate change’ when referring to the heavy rainfall – something that resulted in further "dramatization” of the condition; as cited in a previous report published by the Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor “Akeed”.

On social media, climate change has also been referred to as the reason behind heavy rainfall in both Jordan and the region, which –along with the influence of media outlets– further pushed the public into directly associating ‘climate change’ with the inconsistent weather conditions.

With the use of titles like “Climate Change Behind Dead Sea Tragedy, Signs of More to Come," "Climate Change Disaster, Goodbye to Four Seasons" and "Heavy Rain in Arab Countries: Normal or Climate Change?" media addressed the extent of the relation between the ‘climate change’ phenomenon and the rainfall in Arab countries, including that in Jordan.

According to Jordan's Third National Communication on Climate Change report, there is a significant decrease of rainfall in western regions, with even drier climate in southern and eastern regions: reaching 30% in some cases.

The 2014 report, which was prepared by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), indicates a 15% decline in cumulated precipitation (in a stabilization scenario) and a further 21% decline (in an extreme scenario).

Ibrahim Oroud, an academic lecturer in Geography and Climate Sciences, told “Akeed” that associating the recent heavy rainfall in Jordan with the "climate change" phenomenon is quite a shallow analysis of the situation, aimed at avoiding responsibility for what followed these weather conditions.

"Impacts of climate change are not clear in these weather conditions, since analyzing the phenomenon requires the evaluation of long-term signs and figures, along with observing the fluctuations in temperatures and the shifts in rainfall patterns," Oroud stated.

Oroud added that “Such weather often occurs in Jordan and the region, as it has in previous years; especially during the periods between early-October and late-November as well as early-March till mid-April, in what is known as thunderstorms."

In previous years, both Jordan and the region have witnessed similar thunderstorms, including the 1963 Petra floods, which killed 21 French tourists and three others, as well as the 1966 Ma'an floods, which resulted in more than 100 deaths.

Oroud pointed out that these rains are due to atmospheric instability, which is typically "natural and has no clear connection to climate change." He added that the massive number of casualties and injuries was a result of other factors; including the cultural tendency of “compulsive assistance” when such incidents occur; in addition to poor planning, expanding population, unplanned relocation between regions and weak infrastructure.

With such floods, the number of victims increases due to natural drains being encroached upon. There are towns whose inhabitants reside in the valleys, which naturally serve as passages for streaming water in the event of heavy rainfall.

According to the Director General of the Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD), Hussein Momani, “All what’s said about climate change being the cause behind heavy rainfall in Jordan, as well as causing heat spikes during summer or sudden rains, has nothing to do with the climate change phenomenon.”

Momani added that the phenomenon is not linked to instantaneous atmospheric complexities, and that studying it takes nearly 30 to 40 years in order to determine whether climate change is affecting a certain region or not; stressing the need to distinguish between "low-pressure," “weather instability" and "climate change."

The issued weather forecast was about "weather instability" rather than "weather depression," Momani said. He added that “weather instability forms locally, making it difficult to predict where rain will end up falling, which is what actually happened.”

According to Momani, the low-pressure area came from the Mediterranean Sea or Cyprus and prevailed in the Kingdom and its neighboring countries. JMD tends to warn citizens against the formation of floods and the possibility of heavy rain – in fear of an unfortunate disaster.

Akeed stresses on the important role of media platforms and specialists in clarifying such natural phenomena, without associating them with entrenched false beliefs, that mostly spread on social networking platforms. Media outlets must act as a reliable source of information in light of developing events and natural disasters, especially as inaccurate information can pose a serious impact on society.

Akeed also advises tackling the subject of heavy rainfall without over-analyzing its association with climate change, which is a global phenomenon affecting many places in the world; and is not limited to a specific area.