Dubai faces historic storm that causes unprecedented flooding in the city

The storm recorded this Tuesday (16) in a desert country like the United Arab Emirates, left meteorologists and climate experts trying to understand the reason for its occurrence.

_{Rain flooded Dubai (Photo: reproduction/metsul.com)}

This Tuesday (16) the city of Dubai, the best known and most famous in the United Arab Emirates for its exuberance and glamour, which receives millions of tourists a year and is one of the most sought after destinations for tourism, recorded a storm that was considered historical event that culminated in flooding with a volume of water in 48 hours considered greater than that predicted for the entire year.

Local meteorologists defend the hypothesis of “artificial rain” resulting from the “cloud seeding” process, while experts argue that what happened is related to climate change.

Cloud Seeding

Almost desert countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been using this activity to create rain and alleviate the heat since 2010. This technology uses aircraft that release chemicals, such as sodium chloride, silver iodide, dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) into clouds for rain to happen.

The technique has already been used in other countries, such as China and even Brazil and has high maintenance costs and is difficult to predict unwanted effects.

For the future, the UAE intends to invest in other projects using drones that fire electrical charges into the clouds, which according to experts is ideal as it does not use chemicals.

Climate changes

Changes in temperature and climate can either be natural or caused by human interference, which has been the main factor in their occurrence, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels.

The rain in Dubai may have been caused by a common meteorological phenomenon, however, climate experts argue that as the ocean waters are warmer due to climate change, it may have generated more humidity, causing the strongest storm recorded in the city.

Featured photo: floods in the United Arab Emirates (Reproduction/AP/Jon Gambrell)