I’ve seen people saying its due to cloud seeding is this true?
In: Planetary Science
Dubai is very hot and dry so when it rains it rains a lot, Dubai rarely has rain that lasts a long time so has poor drainage, the climate is changing causing heavy rains in some places and droughts in others.
Cloud seeding can only release the water already in the air down as rain.
It does not add additional moisture.
It is not like this place normally gets a lot of moist air that travels though the area without raining down.
Ecologies and geology “adapts” to their natural climate. Areas that receive lots of rain normally will have soil that is less compacted (due to fluid movement) and absorb and retain water naturally directing excess into nearby rivers and streams.
Deserts on the other hand, have compact and dry soil. This kind of soil is less able to absorb and retain lots of water. Hence an unusual amount of rain causes a lot of water to remain on the surface and this causes problems as the water flows and causes destruction over a wide area.
Cloud seeding cannot “create” water. If there are no clouds or insufficient clouds, then seeding is not very effective. Cloud seeding cannot evaporate water from the seas and control the winds that bring water vapor towards land as clouds. It is highly unlikely that cloud seeding had anything to do because the effect either works immediately or nothing happens. It can’t linger in the air for days.
Cloud seeding when used for rainfall enhancement (like Dubai) is done to attempt to trigger rainfall from clouds which aren’t raining, or raining very lightly. If the forecast is showing the potential for heavy rain, they won’t seed, because it’s a waste…it’s not needed.
Disclaimer: I used to work for a cloud seeding company as a weather forecaster.
It’s not directly because of cloud seeding, but a mix of extra moisture in the atmosphere due to warmer weather from climate change, and a city not built for heavy rainfalls. Why spend the time, money and effort to build massive storm drains when you’ve never had a massive storm?
Climate change producing an unexpected amount of rain over a totally unprepared city – I read there’s no storm water drain infrastructure, so there’s no where for the water to go
Very poor if any water drainage. Cities like it hardly ever have rain so they don’t invest in drainage.
The same was (is?) in Jeddah, Saudi back when I lived there some 30+ years ago. It rained maybe 3-4 days a year, so it didn’t justify spending so much in drainage. But when it did rain it flooded like crazy. I think they finally invested In some proper drainage now.
This is somewhat similar to say London (England) and snow, where the slightest spec of snow would grind the whole city to a halt. Same reasons, it hardly snows there nowadays hence no justification to invest so much money on that.
I read that when they designed the city, being that it’s in the middle of an arid desert, they didn’t plan for drainage.
I pretty much expect in the near future or sometime down the line, Dubai won’t be able to keep fighting off the sandstorms, oppressive heat and torrential floods with climate change. People are going to have to leave and abandon that city and it’ll just be an eerie relic to man’s arrogance one day. They’ll have to move on and play deluded oil baron somewhere else. The desert is gonna come and take back its inhospitable land at some point.
This is nothing to do with cloud seeding, which is used regularly but doesn’t create monsoon rains if you over-do it.
Dubai does have a storm drain system but it gets very little use and gets clogged with sand
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