Well, well. Is it ‘global warming’ or ‘cloud seeding’?

As far as I remember one of the factors in the Lynton and Lynmouth floods was the fact that the river had been re routed - a thing that rarely ends well.

The storm experienced by Dubai was being tracked days before it dumped its rain. So this was a dead cert - seeding would have made an extremely minor contribution to the torrent that fell.

Global warming is producing much more energy in the weather systems, which just as we are experiencing produces much more rain.

For those interested this is a YouTube video made 2 months ago (ie 2 months before the flooding) discussing the hows and whys of cloud seeding in the UAE.

It was made by CNBC and includes interviews with Abdulla Al Mandous, director general at the UAE National Centre of Meteorology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSqfc15c36U

Apparently the Russians have carried out cloud seeding before the parade in Red Square every year for years to ensure that there was a good day for the parade. I think it must be 20 years since I first heard of it. The Americans are doing it too. They have used silver iodide from flares to increase snowfall over their ski areas and in places like California to increase rain fall. I've certainly seen pictures of cloud seeding in the UAE as it's done by drones firing electricity into the rain clouds, but who knows whether this was carried out prior to the floods.

Don't know if it has ever been done here.

No whenIwasyourage you can never have enough of conspiracy theories 😂

#yeahthatwasajoke

Ooooh, interesting Callistemon

M0nica

Callistemon 'supposedly' is the word. I think there was more than enough meteorological data, to show that this was a natural disaster, not one caused by cloud seeding.

🤔

There is more than a grain of truth in the stories of experimental rain making. Operation Cumulus.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/aug/30/sillyseason.physicalsciences

Crossed posts, RosiesMaw!

Of course not, Oreo. Nobody involved in cloud seeding would be so stupid as to do it to a cloud already full of water ready to drop! Climate change makes warmer air. Warmer air holds more water (basic science). More water leads to more and heavier rain. Haven't we had enough of the conspiracy theories??!!

From todays DT
The UAE does have an operational cloud-seeding programme to enhance the rainfall in this arid part of the world,” said Prof Maarten Ambaum, a Reading University meteorologist. “ But there is no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event.” No cloud-seeding operations have taken place in the area recently, he added, and there would have been no benefit in seeding clouds that were predicted to produce substantial rain anyway.
“ The [weather] system was identified in our global model, which doesn’t include any inputs on weather modifications,” says Grahame Madge, a Met Office climate spokesman. “So the system at least was naturally occurring .”
In the usually arid Gulf state, where the mercury can rise to 50C in summer, planes regularly carry out cloud seeding, reportedly using salt material components

Has anyone owned up to cloud seeding in this region?

Callistemon 'supposedly' is the word. I think there was more than enough meteorological data, to show that this was a natural disaster, not one caused by cloud seeding.

Cloud seeding was supposedly the cause of the Lynton and Lynmouth floods in 1952.

MOnica is right. Cloud seeding has been going on for years and would not have produced the storms we have seen in Dubai. Climate change is causing extreme weather all over the world and it will get worse. There's a lot more to it than some nice hot days on the beach.

Well, I knew about cloud seeding and so did many other people. It has been around for a long time. However it is not capable of producing the amount of rain Dubai received this week.

This rain front, which was regional not just local to Dubai, was the effect of global warming. Rainfall in Dubai is expected to increase 30% over the next centur and, as with this country, weather systems when they arrive will be more intense - just like this week's weather.

The problem is, just as we have heavy snow very rarely so have trouble dealing with it, Dubai has weather events like this very rarely and does not have the infrastructure to deal with it.