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What is cloud seeding and did it cause Dubai flooding?

1 day ago
By Mark Poynting & Marco Silva,
BBC News

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Getty Images People wade through flood water with trees and clouds in the
background, in Dubai on 17 AprilGetty Images
Dubai has been hit by record floods over the past 24 hours, sparking misleading
speculation about cloud seeding.

So how unusual was the rainfall and what were the reasons behind the extreme
downpours?

How extreme was the rainfall?

Dubai is situated on the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is usually
very dry. But while it receives less than 100mm (3.9in) a year of rainfall on
average, it does experience occasional extreme downpours.

In the city of Al-Ain - just over 100km (62 miles) from Dubai - about 256mm (10in)
of rain was recorded in just 24 hours.

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A "cut off" low pressure weather system, which drew in warm, moist air and blocked
other weather systems from coming through was the main cause.

"This part of the world is characterised by long periods without rain and then
irregular, heavy rainfall, but even so, this was a very rare rainfall event,"
explains Prof Maarten Ambaum, a meteorologist at the University of Reading who has
studied rainfall patterns in the Gulf region.

1:26
More than double the amount of rain expected in a year fell in just one day.
What role did climate change play?
It is not yet possible to exactly quantify how much of a role climate change
played. That requires a full scientific analysis of natural and human factors,
which can take several months.

But the record rainfall is consistent with how the climate is changing.

Put simply: warmer air can hold more moisture - about 7% extra for every degree
Celsius - which can in turn increase the intensity of rain.
"The intensity of the rain was record breaking, but this is consistent with a
warming climate, with more moisture available to fuel storms and make heavy
rainfall events and associated flooding progressively more potent," explains
Richard Allan, professor in climate science at the University of Reading.

A recent study suggested that annual rainfall could increase by up to about 30%
across much of the UAE by the end of the century as the world continues to warm.

"If humans continue to burn oil, gas and coal, the climate will continue to warm,
rainfall will continue to get heavier, and people will continue to lose their lives
in floods," says Dr Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial
College London.

Reuters People walk through flood water caused by heavy rains, in Dubai..Reuters
People walk through flood water caused by heavy rains in Dubai
What is cloud seeding and did it play a role?
Cloud seeding involves manipulating existing clouds to help produce more rain.

This can be done by using aircraft to drop small particles (like silver iodide)
into clouds. Water vapour can then condense more easily and turn into rain.

The technique has been around for decades, and the UAE has used it in recent years
to help address water shortages.

In the hours that followed the floods, some social media users were quick to
wrongly attribute the extreme weather solely to recent cloud seeding operations in
the country.

Earlier reports by Bloomberg suggested cloud seeding planes were deployed on Sunday
and Monday, but not on Tuesday, when the flooding occurred.

While the BBC has been unable to independently verify when cloud seeding took
place, experts say that at best it would have had a minor effect on the storm and
that focusing on cloud seeding is "misleading".

BBC illustration showing how artificial rain works: clouds are injected with salts,
which act as a catalyst to combine water droplets in clouds, eventually causing
rainfall.
"Even if cloud seeding did encourage clouds around Dubai to drop water, the
atmosphere would have likely been carrying more water to form clouds in the first
place, because of climate change", says Dr Otto.

Cloud seeding is generally deployed when conditions of wind, moisture and dust are
insufficient to lead to rain. In the last week, forecasters had warned of a high
flooding risk across the Gulf.

"When such intense and large scale systems are forecasted, cloud seeding - which is
a costly process - is not performed because [there is] no need to seed such strong
systems of regional scale," says Prof Diana Francis, head of the Environmental and
Geophysical Sciences at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.

Four ways climate change affects extreme weather

Why is the world getting warmer?
BBC Weather meteorologist Matt Taylor also noted the severe weather event had
already been forecast. "Ahead of the event, computer models (that don't factor in
potential cloud seeding effects) were already predicting well over a year's worth
of rain to fall in around 24 hours," he said.
"The impacts were much wider than I would expect from cloud-seeding alone too -
severe flooding impacting large areas from Bahrain to Oman."

Cloud seeding missions in Emirati territory are run by the National Center of
Meteorology (NCM), a government task force.

How prepared is the UAE for extreme rainfall?

Preventing heavy rainfall turning into deadly floods requires robust defences to
deal with sudden intense downfalls.

Dubai is, of course, heavily urbanised. There is little green space to absorb the
moisture, and drainage facilities were unable to withstand such high levels of
rainfall.

"There need to be strategies and adaptation measures to [adapt to] this new reality
[of more frequent and intense rainfall]," explains Prof Francis.

"For example, the infrastructure of roads and facilities need to be adapted,

building reservoirs to store water from spring rain and use it later in the year."

In January, the UAE's Road and Transport Authority set up a new unit to help manage
floods in Dubai.

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