Cloud seeding and the floods in Dubai

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Today we have something for you from that stronghold of solid science journalism, TikTok (please do click & watch):

@carolinestanburyDubai rain today .. 😱 #dubai #rain #storm #flood

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This is just one of countless TikTok posts reporting that the terrible floods throughout Dubai and the UAE are the result of recent cloud seeding efforts. Well, they actually do get two things right:

1. UAE has indeed been doing cloud seeding lately.

2. UAE has indeed, for real, been hit with some disastrously rare heavy rain and flood conditions. Those pictures in the TikTok video are legit.

What these TikTokkers get wrong is drawing a false causation. No, the flooding has nothing to do with the recent cloud seeding efforts. Permit me to explain.

With only 100-200mm of rain per year and constantly growing demands, UAE scrapes by under permanent drought conditions. They have to rely almost entirely upon desalination from the Persian Gulf, which is costly and inefficient. As part of a “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” strategy, UAE has spent millions of dollars on cloud seeding experiments for decades. Every time they get rain, they credit their cloud seeding. Confusion of correlation with causation has become almost an institution in UAE.

Last month, it was a slow news day — so some news outlets published a public interest story about how UAE does their cloud seeding. The article reported nothing new, it was just a historical and descriptive piece.

Now let’s change gears, from weather and meteorology (short term weather events) to climatology (long term trends) — two very different fields. Climatologists in the UAE (and worldwide) have long been aware that climate change is expected to bring much more rain to UAE. Unfortunately much of that comes in the form of storms that will become increasingly frequent and severe — exactly like this one they’ve just had. It’s actually pretty serious: UAE expects an increase in days with greater than 1cm in rainfall. That’s a legit rain day anywhere, and UAE is a country with zero meaningful infrastructure to either accommodate storm rains or to capture their water. Big storms like this most recent one are expected every year, from now on; and even worse in future decades.

So why am I being so quick to slash that link between UAE’s cloud seeding and these floods? Simple: Cloud seeding probably doesn’t work and had nothing to do with these floods. Check out the Wikipedia article on cloud seeding. Cloud seeding is useless at worst, and at best it can probably create a 1-3% increase in rain today, at the expense of that same rain tomorrow. Cloud seeding does not magically create water vapor where none existed before; the very best it might hope to accomplish is to seed a cloud that you may have today to precipitate it into rain, leaving the sky drier for tomorrow.

Salient points:

• Yes, UAE practices cloud seeding. They’re desperate, and a lot of people think it works, because sometimes it’s followed by rain. Correlation does not equal causation, and human brains are subject to human fallibility.

• Climate change — ironically driven by the fossil fuel industry that is the entire reason UAE exists — guarantees there will be increasing numbers of unpredicted major storms like this recent one.

• We know that cloud seeding cannot produce a major storm like what UAE has just dealt with.

• Such major flooding events will become more common, regardless of any cloud seeding UAE may or may not do.

• The entire fossil fuel industry is ass-juice and must be put to death as soon as possible.

• TikTok is a shit source for your science information.

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