Abstract
The human influence on the Earth's climate, including atmospheric, ocean and land components, is unequivocal (IPCC, 2021). Since the industrial revolution, a continuous increase in the volume of greenhouse gases (GHGs) being emitted into the atmosphere, in addition to land-use changes (e.g., extensive deforestation and urbanization), have caused a significant increase in the global surface temperature, as well as changes in other meteorological parameters such as rainfall. The regional responses to climate forcing due to anthropogenic GHG emissions are not linear or uniformly distributed. Due to geographically specific climate feedback mechanisms, some regions warm more rapidly than the global mean. One such climate change hotspot is the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME) region (Figure 1) (