According to a press release from Lyon 1 University / ENS de Lyon, dated October 6, 2026. An international research team, including the Lyon Laboratory of Geology: Earth, Planets, Environment (LGL-TPE – Lyon 1 University / ENS de Lyon / CNRS) and the Institut Lumière Matière (iLM – Lyon 1 University / CNRS), is shedding new light on the formation of “salt giants” through a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Thumbnail: The Dead Sea © Achim Brauer
As temperatures rise, the Dead Sea is evaporating at a faster rate and its salinity continues to increase. Focusing on global warming and the level of the Dead Sea, an international research team—including the Lyon Laboratory of Geology: Earth, Planets, Environment (LGL-TPE —Lyon 1 University / ENS de Lyon / CNRS) and the Institut Lumière Matière (iLM—Lyon 1 University / CNRS), is providing new insights into the formation of “salt giants”—immense salt deposits left behind by prehistoric seas. These findings have just been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Summers are already particularly hot in the Dead Sea: the average monthly air and surface water temperatures reach about 34 °C. But the situation could become even more extreme.
A new study, involving the LGL-TPE and the iLM, has modeled heat exchange in the Dead Sea in detail and reproduced four decades of temperature data. The model predicts that by 2100, if the air temperature in the region rises by 4 °C, the temperature of the Dead Sea could increase by 8 °C, while its water level could drop by 85 meters. The main cause would be a decrease in the efficiency of evaporative cooling—the same phenomenon that cools soup when you blow on its surface.
As water withdrawals and global warming intensify evaporation, the Dead Sea is becoming increasingly salty. However, the saltier the water, the less effectively evaporation can dissipate heat. Cooling can then no longer compensate for the heat absorbed by the surface: the Dead Sea continues to evaporate while warming. Applied to a hypothetical Mediterranean Sea that is gradually becoming isolated, the same mechanism suggests a new interpretation of the formation of the ancient “salt giants”: these immense salt deposits left behind by prehistoric seas may not necessarily be evidence of an extremely arid climate, but rather of the gradual collapse of isolated seas due to this mechanism of warming and evaporation.