Lifestyle

Unusual Rainfall Causes Floods in Desert City of Dubai: What Led to the Downpour?

Tuesday’s intense rains caused parts of Dubai’s main roadways and international airport to flood, bringing the desert city to a complete stop. In the afternoon, the Dubai airport’s operations were halted for 25 minutes until they were resumed. Images circulated on social media featured aircraft taxiing through an airport engulfed in standing water. The city received a year and a half’s worth of rain in a single day, according to the Associated Press, which referenced meteorological data gathered at Dubai International Airport.

Around 20 millimeters (0.79 inches) of rain fell on Dubai’s roads and beaches when the rain started late on Monday. By Tuesday’s end, Dubai had been saturated by almost 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rain as it had continued to intensify. At Dubai International Airport, there is 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain on average every year. Before the intense downpour, the UAE authorities had warned residents to stay inside and only emerge “in cases of extreme necessity.” It then stated that all federal employees would be able to work remotely through Wednesday.

What caused the heavy rainfall in Dubai?

CNN reports that the rain that submerged Dubai is part of a larger storm system that is sweeping across the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Peninsula. Southeast Iran and neighboring Oman are also experiencing exceptionally rainy weather due to this same cyclone. As a result of Oman’s floods brought on by the recent heavy rains, at least 18 people have died. However, Friederike Otto, a pioneer in evaluating how climate change affects certain extreme weather occurrences, also linked the extraordinary rainfall to global warming.

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Otto, of the Imperial College London-based Grantham Institute for Climate Change, told AFP that “it is highly likely that human-caused climate change made the deadly and destructive rain in Oman and Dubai heavier.” Bloomberg revealed that cloud seeding was a contributing factor in the intense rains. In 2002, the UAE initiated cloud seeding operations to tackle the problem of water security. To encourage greater rain from clouds, the method entails introducing chemicals and microscopic particles—typically naturally occurring salts like potassium chloride—into the sky. Over the previous two days, seven flights were completed by seeding planes, according to meteorologist Ahmed Habib of Bloomberg. “You make the operation for any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE,” he stated.