Evaluation and Classification of Military Climatic Calendar of the Iran-Iraq Border Lines

Climate affects all human activities including military operations, which should be carefully evaluated for every military operation. This means that climatic principles and concepts should be put into practice. One of the main concerns of the strategic commanders panning for long-term issues is accessing the most suitable time and place for their military operations. To this end, this study suggested an index called Military Climatic Index (MCI) thereby military climatic calendar could be measured. The suggested MCI accommodates eight indices (i.e., number of frozen, +30 degrees, rainy, snowy, -2km sight, and foggy days, relative humidity and wind speed) affecting any military operations. To meet the objectives of the study, data on the climatic variables were collected from 19 stations affiliated to the Iranian Meteorological Organization, and then their military appropriateness in terms of various months of the year along the Iran-Iraq border lines was investigated. The results were distributed in GIS context which resulted in a military climatic map throughout various months. The findings revealed that during the cold months (i.e., December, January, February and March) southern regions (e.g., Ilam and Khozestan provinces) are more appropriate in terms of military climate than the northern regions (e.g., Kordestan and Azerbaijan provinces). While, during the hot months (i.e., June, July, august, and September) the opposite trend holds true.