Global Climate Change and Challenges that They Present for the Cultural Heritage with Particular Reference to Türkiye

As we go through a global climate change, the scale and intensity of these changes worsen every year. Climate, the long-term patterns of weather events, is a complex and dynamic structure. Climate changes may cause cascading transformations in the ecosystem. Based on the scientific research through governmental, non-governmental, and international agencies we know that the major challenges still lie ahead of us. As global climate change gradually turns into a climate crisis and the longer humanity stalls in finding adaptations—rather than palliative temporary fixes—harsher weather events will become the norm, especially in the mid-latitude regions. The Mediterranean Basin, including Türkiye, is one of these regions that will be hit hard by extreme but frequent weather events. An increase in sea level, stronger than usual storms and even tornados fed by warmer sea surface temperatures, longer phases of drought followed by torrential rains, landslides, floods, and persistent air pollution due to frequent inversion events not only threaten the public health or the economy, they also pose risks for the cultural heritage. As the risks—the likelihood of these natural hazards causing harm—increase, states in developed countries have already started to take preventive measures to protect their cultural heritage. In developing countries, like Türkiye, these efforts are still in their planning stage. We are falling behind the current as each day passing requires more time and resources to protect the rich cultural heritage of Türkiye.