As Dubai still recovers from the floods and unprecedented storms that hit the United Arab Emirates and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, killing at least 20 people, conspiracy theorists have come to a conclusion that suits them: Technology is to blame. “cloud seeding”, i.e. the artificial induction of rain used to induce rainfall.
Unfortunately for them, the official data, as well as the scientific data, disprove this claim. The conspiracy theory began to circulate when a meteorologist at the United Arab Emirates’ National Center for Meteorology (NCM), the equivalent of the EMY, told Bloomberg that cloud seeding may have played a role in amplifying the effects of the weather system that passed through the region. This position opened Aeolos’ bag, and media, Authorities and conspiracy theorists started to look at the data. In the UAE’s “cloud seeding” program, six or seven aircraft participate, which at the first suspicion of moisture in the atmosphere and the need for precipitation rush to “bomb” the clouds (which are already formed) with materials that accelerate and “direct” in certain areas the rainfall. There were reports of these aircraft flying in the days before the advent of the barometric, but these were ultimately disproved based on the aircraft’s flight data. Of these, only one flew in the days before the storm, but as experts point out, even if it tried to “sow the clouds” this would in no way be enough to have an effect.
To put an end to the various conspiracy scenarios, NCM issued an official statement clarifying that it bears no responsibility for the outcome. According to the data, at least 150 millimeters of rain fell in places within 24 hours, a 75-year record.
Meteorologists, as well as experts, emphasize that if something played a role in breaking this record, it is not the “cloud seeding” program, but climate change. The practice of “cloud seeding” has been known for many decades and has been extensively researched. It’s a practice that’s simple in its logic: Airplanes or drones disperse local particles of silver iodide (or other compounds) or even plain table salt into the atmosphere. These attach to the already existing moisture droplets present in the atmosphere (when present) and thus create ice crystals (a natural process) and “force” them due to gravity to fall to Earth. The technology has been in the works since the 1940s, but only in recent years have scientists been able to say with certainty that cloud seeding directly causes a cloud to shed its stored moisture. According to the NMC: “Cloud seeding requires the presence of rain clouds and this is a problem as it does not always happen.” An agency scientist told international media that: “Cloud seeding increases precipitation rates by about 10% to 30% annually. According to our calculations, cloud seeding costs much less than the desalination process.”
According to Omar Al Yazidi, deputy director of the agency: “One of the basic principles of cloud seeding is that you have to target the clouds in their early stage before it rains, if you have a severe storm situation then it’s too late to carry out any operation sowing”. Experts stress that in this particular case, there would be no benefit to seeding these clouds, as they were predicted to produce significant rain anyway.
It is precisely this, the predictions of significant rainfall, that is the key element that rules out the phenomenon being caused by “cloud seeding”, but demonstrates that this was consistent with models related to the effects of climate change. More specifically, meteorologists and climate scientists have told international media that such extreme rainfall is consistent with what they expect as the consequences of human-caused climate change. Atmospheric science researcher Tomer Burg pointed to computer models that six days earlier had predicted several millimeters of rain – the typical amount for an entire year in the UAE.
According to meteorologist Michael Mann, of the University of Pennsylvania, three low pressure systems formed a chain of storms that moved slowly along the jet stream – the “river” of air that moves weather systems – towards the Persian Gulf. According to Mann, “the theory of cloud seeding not only ignores the prediction, but also the cause.”
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