Why Worry About Facts, Sky?
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Apparently subjective opinions are now more important on Sky Weather:
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.
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.
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."
https://news.sky.com/story/what-is-cloud-seeding-and-did-it-cause-record-rainfall-in-dubai-13117432
So Chris England, who I suspect knows no more about cloud seeding than you, me, or the village idiot, is sure climate change is to blame instead.
Meanwhile, 1st prize for stating the obvious goes to Otto, the expert in fabricating fictitious weather attribution claims. Nobody claims that seeding makes rain out of nowhere – the claim is that it increases rainfall where clouds already exist.
Of course, there are thousands of cities around the world, so it is inevitable that there are record claims like Dubai’s somewhere every year. They have absolutely no climatological significance whatsoever.
Interesting though, the World Bank Climate Portal has analysed the UAE’s daily rainfall records, and concluded that 140mm of rain in a day is not unusual from a statistical point of view – TRANSLATION – it’s just weather!
https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/united-arab-emirates/extremes
Final thought.
Heavy rain in the Middle East is part of life there. Has Sky never heard of wadis before?
But if rainfall is really increasing in these desert regions, then surely this is a good thing?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“
Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey
Whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky
Song: Luke Bryan “Rain is A Good thing”
The humidity in that area is very high. All that is needed for rain is a small drop in pressure and/or temperature. Having worked in Muscat for several years I confirm your comment about wadis!
Concrete must be involved in the flooding, probably a lot more of it in recent decades, but the BBC blamed it on CC, citing “experts”.
Friederike Otto couldn’t be relied upon to give you the date of Christmas Day 2024.
Yet another charlatan.
It is hard to imagine the UAE Authorities flying cloud-seeding planes around with no clouds to seed. Whether seeding really works or not.
I think they try to leave stunts like that to our own Beloved Uniparty.
But, whilst I have nothing but contempt for the gang of Activist Grannies in Switzerland (Not to mention the Activist “Judges”), I think that I would be off to see my Lawyer to consider action against the Engineers responsible for designing a blatantly inadequate drainage system. And I write as a retired Chartered Civil Engineer.
Hunga Tonga under ocean volcano threw a lot of water into the stratosphere, (it is the biggest eruption since Krakatoa in 1883). It has to come down eventually, that seems a more logical explanation for all the rain.
No, even though it was a big increase for the stratosphere, it was very small in comparison to the total amount of water vapour in the troposphere which gives us our weather. If Hunga Tonga was involved, then it must be indirectly via the possible effect that a large change in stratospheric water vapour has on global circulation/jet streams and hence regional patterns of weather.
J’aime, your second sentence is a good one – the first not so. We dont know the impact of Hunga Tonga but it increased atmospheric H2O by about 10% = millions of tons. What effect will this imbalance have; the steam went up to the stratosphere but over time it will descend through the troposhere. What goes up … . We certainly dont know how to predict the result of Hunga Tonga, we’ve never seen such a massive impact on the atmosphere before. All eyes should be focussed on determining its impacts but to be sure, it will have a huge impact on weather. A wet summer in Australia, a wet winter in UK, we need to observe and learn, NOT ASSUME AND DISCOUNT.
Hunga Tonga had more impact on climate than 150yrs of human activity, thats for sure.
Bob, what I was trying to say is that in absolute terms, the amount of water vapour which entered the stratosphere due to HTHH was small in comparison to the vast amount of water vapour which is contained in the troposphere – and it is moisture within the troposphere which gives us our weather (and rainfall). So even when all that water which was injected into the extremely dry stratosphere (a relatively very large increase in stratospheric wv) rains out into the troposphere below, it will not make much of a difference to the total amount of water in the troposphere.
Bobn
I think it was 10% of stratospheric water vapour, which is normally at very low levels. Atmospheric water vapour is predominantly at low altitudes because it condenses as clouds and ice crystals, and then produces precipitation. Also, pressure (and therefore atmospheric density) falls off roughly exponentially with rising altitude. Look at the diagrams of Figure 2 and Figure 3 in Wijngaarden & Happer’s Infrared Forcing by Greenhouse Gases paper.
I read that this eruption was so big that water vapour reached 53kms from the Earths surface, into the Mesosphere, beyond both the troposphere and stratosphere. If so it will take some time to return, plausible I would suggest. More plausible than cloud seeding.
Not only that but there are more than 60 known tropical storms in the area going back to 1881.
Taken from today’s Watts up with that:-
“In an interview with GRAZIA Middle East, a meteorology expert from the NCM, was quoted as saying, “Whenever there are clouds in the sky, we conduct cloud seeding operations. From yesterday till today [Tuesday afternoon], we carried out six trips. There is a significant decrease in temperatures today and on Wednesday, it’s a drop of around 10 degrees Celsius.”
(NCM is the National Centre for Meteorology.)
Facts are far less interesting than conjecture?
“More than 14cm ” is above the 100 year 90th percentile (as shown in graph)
So quite rare.
But rare stuff happens, albeit rarely 😉
Maybe the cloud seeding didn’t help.
I would hazard a guess that paving the desert was a big factor . .
but climate alarmists would blame climate change.
You are even being fibbed to about rain in Spain;
More climate fibs – you are being fibbed to about the need for swimming pools to not be filled in Spain. It is part of the climate scare to control people. Even the Financial Times, usually a climate scare paper, has an article on Spain’s so called water shortage:
https://www.ft.com/content/a2523b82-0547-4e76-bb9c-e8b6d03e9992
That may be paywalled so here are some excerpts;
Diego Rubio, secretary-general of public policy in the premier’s office, said he understood there was a debate on how to deal with water scarcity. “But it would be a mistake to target exclusively hotel swimming pools or golf courses,” he told the FT. “Their consumption is relatively small.”
Agriculture consumes just over 79 per cent of Spain’s water, with 15 per cent going to residential and commercial use, 5.5 per cent for industry and 0.4 per cent for recreation, according to the environment ministry.
Gonzalo Delacámara, director of the Center for Water and Climate Adaptation at IE University, said the robustness of Spain’s water system so far had allowed a certain “cognitive dissonance”.
While people were being sensitised with messages that “we are experiencing a very important drought, that there is a climate emergency”, the reality was that the system was still resilient and able to deliver water “24/7”.
=================
In simple words – there is no need to stop people using swimming pools.
I am getting so fed up with being fibbed to.
David Tallboys
So this climate lecturer says
“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.”
Does she not know how high the relative humidity is in Dubai?
Climate grifter Dr. Friederike Otto set up World Weather Attribution to “prove” every bit of weather must be “caused by climate change” (whatever that ridiculous phrase is meant to mean.
She and her organisation analysed the 2022 UK “Record Heatwave” coming to this level of quite asinine conclusions.
“At three individual stations the 1-day maximum temperatures are as rare as 1 in 500 years in St James Park in London, about 1 in 1000 years in Durham and only expected on average once in 1500 years in today’s climate in Cranwell, Lincolnshire.”
So St James Park London ( CIMO Class 5 junk site) – well population was just 50,000 in 1500 London not quite the 10 million UHI now. Durham (CIMO Class 5 junk site) figures taken in a hedged artificial garden that didn’t exist for nearly all of the last 1,000 years. And of course RAF Cranwell by the taxiway and sewage settlement tank. Did nobody remind her that Typhoon jets are a modern thing – pretty sure there weren’t any kicking around for all but the last 20 of 1,500 years.
So this is the standard of “Climate Science” lecturers that regularly get consulted…..surely climate science is an oxymoron used by morons.
Are we confusing RAF Cranwell with RAF Coningsby? Coningsby bases Typhoons. Cranwell does not.
Sorry Bob, I bow to your greater knowledge as an ex RAF man. They do have jet aircraft as RAF Cranwell ,though I confess to now not knowing exactly which type. Can you advise me which aircraft are now stationed there?
Ray, I’ve not seen anyone mentioning temps at Cranwell. They fly turbo propelleor trainers there. It was Coningsby where ‘the record’ was set at the class4 site next to hangers in the lee of typhoon exhausts.
No Bob, I am referring to the World Weather Attribution report that I linked to above from Dr Friederike Otto and specifically here –
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/without-human-caused-climate-change-temperatures-of-40c-in-the-uk-would-have-been-extremely-unlikely/
This report used data from Cranwell (not Coningsby) along with Durham and St James Park London.
Cranwell actually recorded the second hottest temperature that day in 2022 along with many other equally spurious sites
Gamecock loves comedy.
“Was it caused by cloud seeding? No, that’s silly. It was climate change what done it.”
In New Zealand we have been informed that it is global warming which caused the rain in Dubai. It is in the news so it must be true. However as far as I remember from Geomorphology as a student this type of weather has caused the present landscape of the Arabian pensinsula with wide wadis in an arid country which were formed by periods of very heavy rain and have little or no water in them most of the time. If it has created a landscape like this, this weather must occur at intervals . The city which is flooded has made no artificial drainage channels to deal with so much water though flooding has occurred before it was probably less.
NZ had a wet summer in 2023, what was it like this year? Post Hunga Tonga.
Birmingham doctor could be struck off after Just Stop Oil protest – BBC News
ha! ha!
“According to Just Stop Oil, Dr Benn informed the General Medical Council and her employer after each arrest and she argues that her actions are consistent with medical ethics, which prioritise patient and public safety above all.”
does that include the safety of patients who cannot afford energy costs and suffer from lack of heating, or those in ambulances stopped by her associates etc etc etc
Rather than being “struck off” I personally feel she should be sectioned under the mental health act. Interestingly did she fulfill her medical duties whilst in the nick?
Perhaps she should have first used her apparent intelligence to check out the veracity (or lack of) the ‘climate change’ claims. Seems she just accepted them blindly. Would she do the same for a patient, just blindly accept their statement of medical symptoms, not do any examination or tests, and prescribe a medicine/drug?? Such lack of basic due diligence is very worrying.
The doleful history of Covid suggests that the answers to your questions are ‘yes’.
I don’t think they were doing that in the 1980s when I experienced heavy rain there.
“It’s just weather”
Hold that revolutionary thought! Not ‘climate change’, not geoengineering/cloud seeding.
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/dubai-flooding-geoengineering-vs
Personally, I think sceptics are being played and some have fallen for it.
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/did-bloomberg-seed-the-idea-of-cloud
How do they know for sure?
No technology in existence could create city’s record rainfall, meteorologist says, after cloud seeding blamed.
The University of Reading has denied that its cloud-seeding technique was to blame for extreme flooding in Dubai after the worst rainfall since records began in 1949.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/university-of-reading-denies-causing-dubai-flooding/
As an interesting case of Cloud seeding, the Russians seeded clouds after the Chernobyl disaster to cause rain to protect Moscow from the approaching radioactivity, apparently this worked perfectly.
I suggest that John Hultquist avoids brandy!
What iI find vert funny about this is that, in the BBC reporting of this, the journalist in Dubai was commiserating with with an English couple who were holidaying there and unable to fly home, completely ignoring his “master’s” assertion that it was their flying there that was causing the “climate” to change – what irony?
I ttoo spent time working in Oman, whilst there I experience one extremely heavy rain event, about 15 cms in 12 hours; and shortly after I left a group of tourists were killed exploring the famous Snake Gorge following heavy rain, this, despite being warned that it wasn’t safe to do so in the monsoon season. And llittle later cyclone Phet dumping a huge amount on Muscat.
Wow! All the way back to 1949 eh?
And specifically Dubai. I wouldn’t be surprised if the storm I experienced which had its peak rainfall a bit further East was similar.
I see the World Bank analysis only goes back to 1985. Just missing by a couple of years another similar event that I experienced personally…
I experienced a massive downpour in the UAE in I think Feb 1983. Had been at a long conference in Dubai, and a lot of us had arranged to head to Fujairah for a couple of days of R&R. We had hired a bus to drive us across the desert, and by the time we headed into the desert from Sharjah it was pelting down. You could barely make out the odd flare through the rain, but with astonishing rapidity the desert was already sprouting stubble. Journey was a bit slow, especially coming through the mountains, but we did get there in time for lunch at the Holiday Inn, which had a top floor restaurant. I have pictures somewhere of the globe light fittings half full of water like a goldfish bowl, because the roof had no proper rainproofing, and water simply leaked inside.
It was soon decided that as the esplanade road was already under several inches of water that anyone who had a plane to catch needed to get back. Just as well we were in a bus, because cars were simply flooding. As we went through the mountains we came to a bridge over a wadi. Well, it had been a bridge in the morning, but now it was completely submerged by the fast flowing torrent. The driver saw a large truck manage to cross, so inched his way over. Getting back to the desert it was now sprouting dark green, but the going was slow with the road often flooded by several inches. We made Sharjah by about 10 pm, where many of the normal routes were impassable (especially the underpasses, which were completely flooded much as I saw later in Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane George). The driver parked up at the edge of the massive car park for the Sharjah Souk for a comfort break: it was just a large reflective lake, reflecting the lights of the Souk prettily.
Dubai itself had not seen the full brunt of the storm, so flooding there was less severe. But taxis were hard to come by even at the then upmarket Galadari complex to get to DXB. I only just made the flight, which was Singapore Air to Paris, refuelling for a 3:30 a.m. takeoff local time. The front of the 747 was an uncomfortable experience heading through the stormy weather over the Gulf, seeming to zigzag and bounce around through the air.