Flooded out Dubai attempts to recover
‘CLOUD SEEDING’ LINKED TO RECORD DELUGE
THE United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out yesterday from the heaviest rain ever recorded in the desert nation.
A deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world’s busiest airfield for international travel.
The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.”
Rain also fell in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the rains were acute across the UAE.
One contributor may have been “cloud seeding,” in which small planes operated by the government fly through clouds burning salt flares, which increase precipitation.
Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains.
Flight-tracking data showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country on Monday.
Soaked
The National, an English-language, state-linked newspaper in Abu Dhabi, quoted an anonymous official at the centre yesterday as saying no cloud seeding took place on Tuesday.
The UAE, which heavily relies on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, conducts cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.
Scientists also say climate change in general is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world.
Rising temperatures and other effects of global warming long have been viewed as a threat to life in the alreadybaking region.
The rains began late on Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with 20 millimetres of rain, according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport. The storms intensified around on Tuesday and continued throughout the day.
Meanwhile in neighboring Oman, at least 19 people were killed in heavy rains, including 10 schoolchildren.