It’s a bit like Alien vs. Predator or Godzilla vs. King Kong. Pass the popcorn: this is going to be fun. It rained very heavily in UAE and Oman. A severe thunderstorm rolled in off the Gulf and allegedly dumped ‘record’ amounts of rainfall in Dubai and elsewhere over a period of less than 24 hours. Two competing teams have immediately sprung into action in an attempt to attribute the extreme rainfall and flooding to human activities: on the left, the climate crisis cultists and on the right, the geoengineering/weather modification crowd. Then there’s me in the middle, about to make the claim here that this is all just natural weather again.
I can offer my own personal experience of being in the UAE in February 1982 or 1983. I attended a week long conference in Dubai, which ended with a number of us heading by bus over to Khor Fakkan on the Fujairah coast - about 80 miles away - supposedly for some R&R and paragliding, surfing etc. The rain started more or less as we left Dubai, but it became really heavy after we struck out across the desert from Sharjah, slowing the journey. You could occasionally making out a wellhead flare through the sheets of rain. We got to Khor Fakkan for a late lunch in the top floor restaurant of the Holiday Inn: I have photos of the globe light fittings half filled with water like goldfish bowls because the roof leaked. After lunch the esplanade was completely submerged, and cars found it impassible. It was decided that those with flights to catch needed to get back if at all possible, and we set off in our trusty Bedford bus. Passing through the mountains we came to a bridge over a wadi - at least, it had been a bridge in the morning, but now was submerged by the torrent. The bus driver was dubious, but a large bulk load truck made it across, so he followed and we got through. The road across the desert was by now frequently under several inches of water, and the going was very slow: we made Sharjah by about 10p.m. to find that all the underpasses were completely flooded and most roads had turned into canals. The driver stopped for a comfort break at the edge of the massive deserted Souk car park, which had become a lake, reflecting the lights of the Souk like a surreal scene from the Arabian Nights.
Old Gulf hands said they hadn't seen anything like it for at least 30 years. Dubai itself was not as badly affected, but was still very wet: I had difficulty securing a taxi to take me to DXB for my flight to Paris (a 747 refuelling in the middle of the night from Singapore) which was probably the worst flight at the front of an aircraft I have ever had, with the nose constantly buffeted from side to side by the turbulence which stretched until we got to the Med.
The event was certainly extremely similar to the recent one, including the extent of the storm, even if it was less severe in Dubai itself. Such storms appear to occur once every few decades, and are not novel.
I worked in Dubai for 18 years as a civil and structural engineer and Dubai suffers from two problems regarding drainage, namely:
a. A large part of Dubai is at or below sea level, which makes it difficult to drain. Furthermore, pumped drainage can be overwhelmed by heavy rainfall.
b. Non-pumped drainage tends to get filled up with silty sand because most of the time the weather is dry. However, when it does rain the silt expands on contact with water and it then tends to block the drains, thus rendering them to be nearly useless. The only drains that can usually function properly are those in item (a) above that are below the water table in tunnels, etc., because these drains are working 24/7.
I suggest that (for the above reasons) the drainage system did not work properly and consequently could not cope with the large amount of rainfall from what is a rare, but not unusual, weather event.
Yep, it's turning into a real bun-fight between climate crisis cultists and 'deniers':
"Many of the people pointing to cloud seeding are also climate change deniers who are trying to divert attention from what's really happening, Mann and other scientists said."
"When we talk about heavy rainfall, we need to talk about climate change. Focusing on cloud seeding is misleading," said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto, who heads a team that does rapid attribution of weather extremes to see if they were caused by global warming or not. "Rainfall is becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture."
GOOD GRIEF! People losing their heads all the time, desperate to prove or disprove their pet theories. Just examine the evidence! THEN voice a calm, considered opinion based on the weight of that evidence.
Now I'm going to have to spend hours trawling through the literature cited in defence of cloud seeding, plus an extra few minutes dismissing the ridiculous assertions of the climate change fanatics!
This is going to prove to be even more contentious than I thought: Judith Curry and Matt Ridley have now joined the ranks of the cloud-seeding convinced.
Jaime, in the course of your research, what have you seen as the most common/top/primary evidence put forward by those claiming there is human related CO2 emissions driven global warming? I'm trying to determine what might be best to focus on to challenge their claim.
Great balanced article, another factor that doesn't get mentioned much is human intervention in natural drainage and water flow when we do get heavy rains. With more and more building on natural flood plains etc and where water would have usually flowed diverted by buildings, we see what looks like a more catastrophic result of heavy rain.
Especially for you;https://jowaller.substack.com/p/glad-to-see-so-many-holding-the-party
Especially for you; https://jowaller.substack.com/p/glad-to-see-so-many-holding-the-party
I can offer my own personal experience of being in the UAE in February 1982 or 1983. I attended a week long conference in Dubai, which ended with a number of us heading by bus over to Khor Fakkan on the Fujairah coast - about 80 miles away - supposedly for some R&R and paragliding, surfing etc. The rain started more or less as we left Dubai, but it became really heavy after we struck out across the desert from Sharjah, slowing the journey. You could occasionally making out a wellhead flare through the sheets of rain. We got to Khor Fakkan for a late lunch in the top floor restaurant of the Holiday Inn: I have photos of the globe light fittings half filled with water like goldfish bowls because the roof leaked. After lunch the esplanade was completely submerged, and cars found it impassible. It was decided that those with flights to catch needed to get back if at all possible, and we set off in our trusty Bedford bus. Passing through the mountains we came to a bridge over a wadi - at least, it had been a bridge in the morning, but now was submerged by the torrent. The bus driver was dubious, but a large bulk load truck made it across, so he followed and we got through. The road across the desert was by now frequently under several inches of water, and the going was very slow: we made Sharjah by about 10p.m. to find that all the underpasses were completely flooded and most roads had turned into canals. The driver stopped for a comfort break at the edge of the massive deserted Souk car park, which had become a lake, reflecting the lights of the Souk like a surreal scene from the Arabian Nights.
Old Gulf hands said they hadn't seen anything like it for at least 30 years. Dubai itself was not as badly affected, but was still very wet: I had difficulty securing a taxi to take me to DXB for my flight to Paris (a 747 refuelling in the middle of the night from Singapore) which was probably the worst flight at the front of an aircraft I have ever had, with the nose constantly buffeted from side to side by the turbulence which stretched until we got to the Med.
The event was certainly extremely similar to the recent one, including the extent of the storm, even if it was less severe in Dubai itself. Such storms appear to occur once every few decades, and are not novel.
Jaime
I worked in Dubai for 18 years as a civil and structural engineer and Dubai suffers from two problems regarding drainage, namely:
a. A large part of Dubai is at or below sea level, which makes it difficult to drain. Furthermore, pumped drainage can be overwhelmed by heavy rainfall.
b. Non-pumped drainage tends to get filled up with silty sand because most of the time the weather is dry. However, when it does rain the silt expands on contact with water and it then tends to block the drains, thus rendering them to be nearly useless. The only drains that can usually function properly are those in item (a) above that are below the water table in tunnels, etc., because these drains are working 24/7.
I suggest that (for the above reasons) the drainage system did not work properly and consequently could not cope with the large amount of rainfall from what is a rare, but not unusual, weather event.
Yep, it's turning into a real bun-fight between climate crisis cultists and 'deniers':
"Many of the people pointing to cloud seeding are also climate change deniers who are trying to divert attention from what's really happening, Mann and other scientists said."
"When we talk about heavy rainfall, we need to talk about climate change. Focusing on cloud seeding is misleading," said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto, who heads a team that does rapid attribution of weather extremes to see if they were caused by global warming or not. "Rainfall is becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture."
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-experts-dont-cloud-seeding-played.html
GOOD GRIEF! People losing their heads all the time, desperate to prove or disprove their pet theories. Just examine the evidence! THEN voice a calm, considered opinion based on the weight of that evidence.
Now I'm going to have to spend hours trawling through the literature cited in defence of cloud seeding, plus an extra few minutes dismissing the ridiculous assertions of the climate change fanatics!
This is going to prove to be even more contentious than I thought: Judith Curry and Matt Ridley have now joined the ranks of the cloud-seeding convinced.
https://twitter.com/mattwridley/status/1780833831144100207
https://twitter.com/curryja/status/1780607123992506545
Hmm... the media has gone from weather manipulation is a crazy conspiracy theory to cloud seeding is an every day thing then....
Jaime, in the course of your research, what have you seen as the most common/top/primary evidence put forward by those claiming there is human related CO2 emissions driven global warming? I'm trying to determine what might be best to focus on to challenge their claim.
Great balanced article, another factor that doesn't get mentioned much is human intervention in natural drainage and water flow when we do get heavy rains. With more and more building on natural flood plains etc and where water would have usually flowed diverted by buildings, we see what looks like a more catastrophic result of heavy rain.