Iraqis cool down from the scorching summer temperatures under public showers in Baghdad on August 12, 2011.

Climate change could make sections of North Africa and the Middle East uninhabitable, according to a recent study.



Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have found that the region – already incredibly hot in the summer – could become so warm that "human habitability is compromised."

The researchers found that even limiting global warming to lower than two degrees Celsius – agreed at the United Nations COP21 climate change summit in Paris last year – would do little to stop the region from overheating, with summer temperatures increasing more than two times faster than the average pace of global warming.

"In future, the climate in large parts of the Middle East and North Africa could change in such a manner that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy," Jos Lelieveld, director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and professor at the Cyprus Institute, said in a statement released this week.