Heavy, unprecedented downpours in parts of UAE’s desert city-state, Dubai, have prompted flight cancellations, school and office closures, and brought traffic to a grinding halt. Several videos of the inundated streets, busy airports, and mist surrounding high-rise buildings in Dubai are circulating on social media, depicting the aftermath of a sudden change in the area’s weather conditions.
While some viral videos show cars being washed away from roads, others captured the ceiling of a shop collapsing as water inundated one of Dubai’s most popular malls. The city’s metro system faced disruptions, and many residents had to evacuate their apartments. Torrential rains have also led to flooding in underground car parks, and several buildings have suffered power outages.
As per reports, the Emirates, located in one of the hottest and driest regions on Earth, has experienced the heaviest rainfall in 75 years in just a few hours. The city recorded more than 142mm of rain in a single day. This amount is equivalent to nearly a year and a half of the desert city’s average annual rainfall. It’s pertinent to note that the Persian Gulf region typically receives an average cumulative annual rainfall of less than 100 mm (3.9 inches).
Experts have revealed that the heavy rains that have led to widespread flooding across the desert nation stemmed partly from cloud seeding, colloquially known as Artificial Rain.
Cloud seeding explained
As part of the continuous ‘water cycle’, water evaporates from the Earth’s surface, condenses to form clouds when warm air cools (as it rises), and falls back as precipitation, like rain, snow, or hail. Now, adequate atmospheric conditions, including sufficient moisture, favourable wind patterns, and the presence of “condensation nuclei”, are required for cloud formation.
Condensation nuclei are tiny particles, such as dust or salt, around which water vapour coalesces (sticks together as one unit) to form water droplets or ice crystals. A large number of these water droplets lead to the formation of a cloud.
Now, some advocate for ‘Cloud seeding’ as a means to catalyze precipitation in arid or semi-arid regions, where rainfall is scarce due to insufficient condensation nuclei or rapid cloud dissipation. Apart from ‘altering’ precipitation, it is also used to mitigate air pollution.
Cloud seeding is a technique that artificially induces or enhances cloud formation to result in precipitation (rainfall or snow, etc.). The cloud seeding operation is carried out using small, slow-moving aircraft that disperse tiny particles (chemicals) such as silver iodide or dry ice into clouds to encourage the formation of ice crystals or water droplets, potentially leading to increased rainfall or snowfall.
The success of cloud seeding depends on meteorological conditions, including the presence of moisture-laden clouds and suitable wind patterns. Additionally, high-speed planes are not suitable for cloud seeding as they drastically reduce the effectiveness of spraying the chemicals. Usually, planes fly below the clouds for this process as there can be challenges in navigating above the clouds.
The UAE has been one of the pioneers in using cloud seeding technology to increase precipitation and it started these operations in 2002 to address water security issues.
According to Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist, the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology (NCM) dispatched seeding planes from Al Ain airport on Monday and Tuesday (15-16 April) to take advantage of convective cloud formations. The riveting process can be witnessed in this video depicting the timelapse and the formation of rain clouds.
He added that the seeding planes have flown seven missions over the past two days.
Habib noted, “For any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE you make the operation (cloud ceding/Artificial Rain).” According to him, the latest storms also followed heavy rains earlier this year.
As a dry city that does not receive much rain, the drainage system in Dubai is not designed to handle the deluge of water that came down in a short period, causing unprecedented flooding in the city. However, despite the problems created by the floods, this shows the success of the cloud seeding program, raising hopes for other similar arid regions.
Meanwhile, apart from the UAE, other countries including Saudi Arabia, Oman, India, China, and among others have used it on various scales to either increase precipitation or reduce air pollution in their countries.
China uses cloud seeding to ‘alter’ rainfall pattern
In 1958, China began experimenting with weather manipulation to combat arid conditions in the northern region. Today, the People’s Republic invests millions annually in its national Weather Modification Office. Between 1999 and 2007, the office claimed to have protected 470,000 square kilometers from hail and produced over 250 billion tons of rain—enough to fill China’s second-largest river, the Yellow River, four times.
These efforts have also positively impacted weather conditions at national events such as the World Expo in Yunnan, the Asian Games in Shanghai, and the Giant Panda Festival in Sichuan.
During the 2008 Olympics, China deployed artificial rain to prevent rainfall over Beijing’s open-air Olympic stadium, the Bird’s Nest, seating 91,000 spectators. This operation was led by the city’s division of the National Weather Modification Office, under the China Meteorological Administration.
India’s own examples of Cloud seeding
A study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) found that a cloud seeding trial in Maharashtra’s Solapur region resulted in an 18% increase in rainfall compared to typical patterns. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune and other institutes conducted the study.
Strikingly, in India, scientists have also explored it to mitigate pollution that grips the northern parts of the country with the onset of winter.
Can cloud seeding have a downside?
However, cloud seeding is not a guarantee of green pastures (metaphorically); its efficacy in many cases is uncertain, and it raises ethical concerns as it can modify natural weather patterns. It can also lead to unintended consequences such as diverting rain from one area to another, causing drought elsewhere. Moreover, regions where cloud seeding is employed often lack the infrastructure to manage increased rainfall, leading to flooding and destruction, as seen in the present case with the UAE. Additionally, it can be costly and may raise legal and regulatory issues.
However, having said that, and despite the bad optics that unfolded before the UAE residents yesterday because of flooding, Dubai’s media office dubbed the downpours “rains of goodness”.
With global warming threatening a surge in heat-related deaths in the UAE, the emirate has been experimenting with this process and made necessary arrangements to minimise the loss because of its experimentation, for a larger good – fulfillment of increasing water demand for the UAE residents.
Notably, to minimise irreparable losses, the UAE government issued warnings ahead of the heavy rains. It asked people to stay at home and only leave “in cases of extreme necessity.” It later extended remote working until Wednesday for all federal employees, as reported by Bloomberg.
It is pertinent to note that with its calibrated experimentation of cloud seeding, the UAE can mitigate the most visible concern of flooding by building underground reservoirs and effective drainage systems.
Over time, significant advancements in cloud seeding technology have and will keep minimizing potential risks involved, rendering it a promising avenue worthy of experimentation for further betterment and mitigating climate crisis, and alleviating water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions.
Every innovative idea, in its inception, may seem radical and lead to a sudden degree of chaos and setbacks. However, with trials and tribulations under critical observation, the successes of past experimentation in climate science, such as cloud seeding, carbon capture technologies, the building of the Suez Canal, the ongoing Interlinking of Rivers project in India, reforestation efforts, genetically modified crops, and the Green Revolution, as seen in yesteryear, demonstrate the value and potential, making it worth undertaking further scientific experimentation.
Mind you, the danger of power (anthropogenic experimentations in the present context) lies not in its existence, but in the hands of those who wield it and the reckless use of technology for nefarious purposes.