Is Dubai Getting Hotter?
Short answer: yes. Dubai's average temperature has climbed roughly 1.9 degrees since the 1980s. That puts it around the middle among the world's major cities for total warming. Here is what 45 years of data actually shows.
Average Annual Temperature by Decade
Dubai's warming rate of 0.6 degrees per decade is the highest among the cities tracked here. While the shorter record (since the 1980s) means the trend line is less certain, the direction is clear. The Persian Gulf region faces a compound challenge: rising air temperatures combined with already extreme humidity create conditions that push against the limits of human outdoor tolerance. Research suggests that by 2070, summer wet-bulb temperatures in parts of the Gulf could regularly exceed the threshold beyond which the human body cannot cool itself through sweating.
Dubai's warming is close to the average across the 29 major cities in our global dataset.
Decade by Decade
| Decade | Avg Temp (C) | Change from 1980s |
|---|
How Dubai Compares Globally
Among the world's major cities, Dubai's warming rate places it in the upper tier. Here is how Dubai stacks up against other global cities.
Key Numbers
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About This Data
Temperature data on this page comes from the Global Historical Climatology Network version 4 (GHCN v4), maintained by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. GHCN v4 contains monthly mean temperature data for over 25,000 stations across the globe, with records dating back to the 18th century for some stations. The data has been quality-controlled and homogenised using the Pairwise Homogeneity Algorithm to remove artificial discontinuities from station moves, equipment changes, and observation practice changes.
Dubai's primary station is Dubai Intl, with records spanning 1981-2025. The "change" figures compare each decade's average to the 1980s baseline. Note that some of the warming in large cities is attributable to the urban heat island effect rather than regional climate change alone. The figures shown here include both components, as they represent what the city actually experiences.
NASA GISTEMP analysis, which processes GHCN v4 data, is a product of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. It is produced as a US Government work and is in the public domain.