What caused unusual rainfall in desert city of Dubai leading to floods?
The UAE government issued warnings ahead of the heavy rains, urging people to stay at home and only leave “in cases of extreme necessity.”
Heavy rainfall on Tuesday brought the desert city of Dubai to a standstill and flooded portions of its major highways and international airport. Operations at the Dubai airport were suspended for 25 minutes in the afternoon before resuming.
Visuals shared on social media showed planes taxiing across the airport flooded with standing water.
According to the Associated Press, which cited the meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport, the city received a year and a half's worth of rain within 24 hours.
The rains began late Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with some 20 millimetres (0.79 inches) of rain. It further intensified on Tuesday and by the end of the day, more than 142 millimetres (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai. An average year sees 94.7 millimetres (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport.
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The UAE government had issued warnings ahead of the heavy rains, urging people to stay at home and only leave “in cases of extreme necessity.” It later announced remote working until Wednesday for all federal employees.
What caused the heavy rainfall in Dubai?
According to CNN, the rain that plunged Dubai underwater is associated with a larger storm system traversing the Arabian Peninsula and moving across the Gulf of Oman.
This same system is also bringing unusually wet weather to nearby Oman and southeastern Iran. At least 18 people have died in recent days as the heavy rains caused flooding in Oman.
Friederike Otto, a leader in the field of assessing the role of climate change on specific extreme weather events, however, also attributed global warming as behind the unusual rainfall.
"It is highly likely that the deadly and destructive rain in Oman and Dubai was made heavier by human-caused climate change," Otto, of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, told AFP.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that the heavy rains stemmed partly from cloud seeding.
The UAE started cloud seeding operations in 2002 to address water security issues. The technique involves implanting chemicals and tiny particles — often natural salts such as potassium chloride — into the atmosphere to coax more rain from clouds.
Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist, told Bloomberg that seeding planes carried out seven missions over the past two days. “For any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE you make the operation,” he said