Climate Change Could Spell Disaster For The Dead Sea

Scientists are looking to crystalline salt samples taken from 1,000 feet below the bed of the Dead Sea to understand the potential dangers of a warming climate, particularly in the Mideast. Their study suggests that as the region becomes more arid, environmental crises that occurred in the past could repeat themselves.

Already an incredibly dry area, scientists fear that climate change could drive rainfall down tremendously as happened 120,000 years ago, and again 10,000 years ago. Samples pulled from salt layers that show that in those years, rainfall plunged to as little as a fifth of modern levels.

In 2010, scientists drilled 1,500 feet into the deepest part of the seabed to retrieve the samples that recorded a 200,000 year history of the region’s climate. When drought conditions occur, precipitated salt forms a layer in the sediment that allows researchers to pinpoint rainfall levels at that time.

“All the observations show this region is one of those most affected by modern climate change, and it’s predicted to get dryer,” said Yael Kiro, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the study. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on land, about 1,300 feet below sea level, and has a history of shrinking naturally with Earth’s environmental shifts.