A record amount of rainfall was said to have caused “absolute carnage” in Dubai on Tuesday – with schools closed, flights suspended and people working from home.
More than 14cm (5.6 inches) of rain soaked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city on Tuesday – the heaviest rainfall there since records began in 1949, the state-run WAM news agency said.
As people in Dubai continue to face disruption due to the downpours, some have suggested the rain could have been caused by a practice carried out by humans known as “cloud seeding”.
Here we take a look at what the process involves and whether it was responsible for Dubai’s wet Tuesday.
What is cloud seeding?
The practice is a type of weather modification process whereby small planes fly through clouds burning salt flares which can increase precipitation to help make it rain.
The UAE, located in one of the hottest and driest regions on Earth, has been leading the effort to seed clouds and increase precipitation.
Dubai airport was flooded
Did cloud seeding cause the storm?
Following the downpour, several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology, the UAE’s meteorology agency, as saying they flew six or seven cloud seeding flights before the rain.
Flight-tracking data showed that one aircraft linked to the UAE’s cloud seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.
However, the meteorology agency told Reuters news agency there were no such operations before the storm.
It comes as a number of experts have also said it is unlikely the downpours would have been caused by cloud seeding.
Vehicles sit abandoned in floodwater covering a major road in Dubai.
Pic: AP
What have the experts said?
Sky News weather producer Chris England said he doubted cloud seeding contributed to the downpour, as the evidence of the practice working is “pretty slim at best”.
He added: “Some studies have indicated climate change will bring an increase in rainfall to the area.”
Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, also said it was misleading to talk about cloud seeding as the cause of the rainfall.
“Cloud seeding can’t create clouds from nothing. It encourages water that is already in the sky to condense faster
and drop water in certain places. So first, you need moisture,” she said.
“Without it, there’d be no clouds.”
Update:
TOWIE stars stranded by floods forced to hitchhike
An SUV drives through floodwater covering a road in Dubai.
Pic: Reuters
Ms Otto added that rainfall was becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.
Professor John Marsham, Met Office joint chair at the University of Leeds, said speculation around cloud seeding is a “distraction from the real story here”.
“We know that man-made climate increases extreme rainfall – this is well understood physics as warm air holds more water.
“A rainfall event such as the one that caused the Dubai floods, which covered a large area and where over Dubai a year’s worth of rain fell in one day, cannot happen without large-scale weather conditions driving enormous convergence of water vapour in the atmosphere and so extreme rainfall.
“Any possible effect of any cloud seeding in these circumstances would be tiny.”
Professor Maarten Ambaum, a meteorologist at the University of Reading who has studied rainfall patterns in the Gulf region, said: “The UAE does have an operational cloud seeding programme to enhance the rainfall in this arid part of the world, however, there is no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event.”
Read more from Sky News
What missiles could Israel use in an attack?
Shannon Matthews’ kidnapper dies
Scotland set to scrap key climate targets
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Cloud seeding not to blame for Dubai floods – expert
If it wasn’t cloud seeding – what did cause the storm?
Prof Ambaum said the UAE is characterised by long periods without rain and then “irregular, heavy rainfall”.
He added: “These storms appear to be the result of a mesoscale convective system – a series of medium-sized thunderstorms caused by massive thunderclouds, formed as heat draws moisture up into the atmosphere. These can create large amounts of rain, and when they occur over a wide area and one after another, can lead to seriously heavy downpours. They can rapidly lead to surface water floods, as we have seen in places such as Dubai airport.”
Meanwhile, climate scientists say that rising global temperatures, caused by human-led climate change, are leading to more extreme weather events around the world, including intense rainfall.
Cars hit by flooding in Dubai. Pic: Reuters
Esraa Alnaqbi, a senior forecaster at the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology, has said climate change likely contributed to the storm.
She said the Dubai downpour came after a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere and low pressure at the surface acted like a pressure “squeeze” on the air.
That squeeze, intensified by the contrast between warmer temperatures at ground level and colder temperatures higher up, created the conditions for the powerful thunderstorm, she said.
World
Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem
South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.
His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Read more from Sky News:
Highs and lows of Five-Year Keir
MP tells Sky News she was targeted online by Tate brothers
The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
Stock markets around the world fell on Thursday after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs – with some economists now fearing a recession.
The US president announced tariffs for almost every country – including 10% rates on imports from the UK – on Wednesday evening, sending financial markets reeling.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
Trump tariffs latest: US stock markets tumble
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
Read more:
Do Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff numbers add up?
Tariffs about something more than economics: power
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway