The Persian/Arabian Gulf, hereafter Gulf, is a semi-enclosed shallow sea with mean depth of about 35 m and approximate surface area of 2.35 × 10 11 m 2. We conclude that Gulf basin salinity is resilient to present brine discharge activities under the current climate. When continuous salinity perturbation is added to the simulations, results show that the present Gulf equilibrium state, characterized by annual mean basin-average salinity of about 40.5 g/kg, is stable. Simulations with different initializations under identical external forcing show that the natural coupled Gulf-Atmosphere system may exhibit a mixture of unstable and stable equilibrium salinity states. Here, using a coupled Gulf-Atmosphere numerical climate model, we test the hypothesis that the Gulf has a single stable equilibrium state under the current climate. In order to quantify current and future impacts of seawater desalination on Gulf salinity and avoid costly environmental problems, it is vital to first examine the present Gulf salinity state and its response to salinity perturbation (i.e., determine its stability). If Gulf salinity significantly rises because of desalination effluent (brine), marine ecosystems and the water supply for many population centers will be threatened.

Surrounding countries produce about 50% of global desalinated seawater. The Persian/Arabian Gulf is the most important region for seawater desalination.

2Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, United States.1Parsons Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States.Ibrahim 1*†, Pengfei Xue 2*† and Elfatih A.

Perian gulf