[HN Gopher] Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122degF heat
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Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122degF heat
Author : kn9
Score : 139 points
Date : 2021-07-21 11:15 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.independent.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.independent.co.uk)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Evaporative cooling for the win.
|
| I wish (any) parks had this built in (ignoring splash/water
| parks), because it would be easier justifying brining kids out in
| this type of heat (especially for parks with no shade due to poor
| design).
|
| It would also bring more community together to have outdoor areas
| that are dramatically cooler than the surroundings.
| singlow wrote:
| > brining kids out in this type of heat
|
| But dry-brining is all the rage right now anyway.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Ha, autocorrect has gone crazy on my iPhone, it replaces the
| word 'has' with 'Hass' as well...
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| It doesn't work well most places west of the Mississippi (where
| evap cooling is most effective) because all the water is owned
| at least twice over.
| voisin wrote:
| I have no idea why shade isn't a primary design concern for
| every park. It is almost always left to "there's a tiny tree
| over there that will produce shade in 25 years". It is
| shocking.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I think the concern is the maintenance. Trees lose leaves in
| autumn increasing labor costs. They may also fall or have
| large branches break off in storms causing damage. I think
| its lazy and anti-environmental but less expenses ftw.
| jcpham2 wrote:
| No trees near water. Algae, maintenance.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It also means no one uses the park when it's hot, so less
| maintenance in that regards. I could definitely design an
| unusable park that had zero maintenance fees :)
| voisin wrote:
| This is as good an explanation as I've ever heard. Seems
| silly though given the maintenance that already takes place
| with respect to lawn mowing. If trees are the concern then
| why not large fabric sails? The park equipment is super
| pricey to begin with so I can't imagine we are taking huge
| extras.
| asdf333 wrote:
| it's also not just the shade. for some reason plant cover is
| significantly cooler than just shade. i am not sure why
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Evaporative cooling. Trees pump huge amounts of water from
| the ground into the air.
| city41 wrote:
| Heck, my neighborhood is 21 years old and the trees are still
| too small to provide any meaningful shade.
| Avalaxy wrote:
| Just got to wait 4 more years then.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| soheil wrote:
| > The monsoon-like downpour drenches a busy highway,
|
| Why is the word monsoon used for countries in the east and heavy
| rainfall or other words in the west? Is there a scientific
| difference?
| ultrarunner wrote:
| My understanding is that monsoonal patterns are a result of
| seasonal heat causing a rising air column, which is then
| replaced by wetter air from over (relatively) nearby oceans.
| Wikipedia says that's no longer the preferred understanding,
| but then goes on to describe exactly what I said, so consult
| your local meteorologist. At any rate, "Monsoon" is a commonly
| used word in Phoenix understood to mean seasonal rain storms.
| This is in contrast to just "rain" which is not necessarily
| monsoonal in nature. We do get rain in the winter,
| occasionally, but it is not the monsoon.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| The other comments here talk about hoarding potential for rain in
| the future and depriving others of it but what about weaponising
| it? You could potentially annihilate your enemy by generating
| masses of rainfall and destroying their infrastructure could you
| not?
|
| It wouldn't be as targetted as a missile strike but you could
| easily say "it wasn't me!"...
| reportgunner wrote:
| Reminds me of Red Alert 2
| https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Weather_control_device_(Red_Aler...
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Hmm... does anyone have beef with both Germany and China? The
| only connection I see between them is that they're both lender
| countries...
| thebean11 wrote:
| If you have the ability to freely fly a bunch of drones in
| enemy territory there's a lot of stuff you can do.
| dylan604 wrote:
| <sarcasm>No need to invade! You could just build a large
| antenna array to control the weather:
| https://presscore.ca/news/haarp-mandated-to-create-floods-
| to...
|
| There are some crazy stories related to the HAARP program
| including opening holes in the ozone layer which caused
| instaneous skin burning to anyone caught under the hole. Even
| back in the early days of the internet, it was obvious how
| the conspiracy circles were going to flourish and push the
| drek to world. I had never heard of presscore.ca, but based
| on this article alone, I now know to hopefully never see it
| again except for examples like in this case.
| blooalien wrote:
| Crazy thing about the "tinfoil hatters" is that they'll
| fight to the death to defend their pet conspiracy, but it's
| _impossible_ for them to believe the much more plausible
| conspiracy theory that certain huge corporate interests
| conspired to sell out the entirety of humanity for
| ridiculous gobs and truckloads of short-term profits.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| If you are really bored, you can cause lightning:
|
| "A lightning rocket is a rocket that unravels a conductor,
| such as a fine copper wire, as it ascends, to conduct
| lightning charges to the ground. Lightning strikes derived
| from this process are called "triggered lightning."[1][2][3]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rocket
|
| Of course, you can just drop some HE instead. Not sure how
| much damage lightning actually does.
| [deleted]
| matt_f wrote:
| Question! Is there any reason this technique could not be applied
| to solve the Oregon wildfires?
| anomaloustho wrote:
| Last I read, the effectiveness of cloud seeding is still up for
| debate.
|
| Wikipedia has a section on effectiveness, "A study conducted by
| the National Academy of Sciences failed to find statistically
| significant support for the effectiveness of cloud seeding."[1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
| kamranjon wrote:
| Lack of clouds during wildfire conditions would be my guess
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| We've actually had a dozen mornings now in the Portland area
| with significant cloud cover. There's also been NW wind flow
| so _if_ this technique only needed clouds and wind to push it
| in the direction of the fires, I don 't see a reason why it
| couldn't work. Then again I'm no meteorologist.
| truculent wrote:
| Are there any known side-effects of inducing rain in an unusual
| place like this? The weather is a complex system, so I hesitate
| to speculate too much, but would it reduce rainfall elsewhere?
|
| With geopolitical tensions rising over rights to the Nile, I
| wonder if rainfall patterns could follow a similar trend.
| bigbassroller wrote:
| The amazon rain forest relies on minerals blown from dust
| storms in the Sahara desert, so therefore terraforming the
| Sahara would have a negative effect on the amazon. Source
| https://youtu.be/2hmAeLYMrQg
| treeman79 wrote:
| Wait 20,000 years and they'll swap positions.
|
| https://phys.org/news/2019-01-sahara-swung-lush-
| conditions-y...
| edgyquant wrote:
| While this is true there's a huge difference between adding
| rain to Dubai and terraforming the Sahara.
| lyaa wrote:
| Not in this case.
|
| The vast majority of the population of the UAE lives in coastal
| cities and that is where the rain is induced. To the east,
| west, and north you have large bodies of water and to the south
| a (mostly) empty desert.
| mrweasel wrote:
| > would it reduce rainfall elsewhere?
|
| It will. I think it was The Economist, but it might have been
| some other magazine, who had an article recently, regarding
| Chinas usage of cloud seeding.
|
| You're potentially "stealing" rain from other countries or
| regions. If it was just going into the ocean, then maybe it's
| fine, but if you're stealing it from a neighbouring country.
| pier25 wrote:
| This reminded me of the "I drink your milkshake" scene from
| "There Will Be Blood".
| singlow wrote:
| For which the quote happened to be on last night's
| jeopardy...
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| Perhaps saltiness?
| bostonsre wrote:
| It sucks for places downstream of the jet stream. It could be
| good to end wildfires and droughts in California and Oregon but
| can't imagine the states to the east will be too happy.
| melicoy wrote:
| I have read that they are using drone technology to create
| precipitation. Can the same method be applied in extinguishing
| forest fires?
| Nux wrote:
| Subject reminds me of this short sci-fi animation I saw somewhat
| recently, worth the 10 minutes imho.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWCGK4nneeU
| shagie wrote:
| DUST ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sDT8jZ76VLV1u__krUutA
| ) is a great channel to subscribe to. It frequently has
| reasonably high production quality science fiction shorts.
| merpnderp wrote:
| Hah, I knew exactly what you referring to before I clicked and
| confirmed. Great piece of art. Thanks for bringing it up.
| nose wrote:
| Could this be used in California as an additional fire
| extinguishing method?
| fjabre wrote:
| Home to some of the best and brightest engineers in the world
| and California is still figuring how many firemen, goats and
| firetrucks to send.
|
| Where are Google, Facebook, Apple, SpaceX, California state
| gov?
|
| And Musk is still focused on LA traffic jams. I guess the worst
| fires in California state history are not enough to sway the
| titans of industry into action.
|
| Even though these fires are happening in their back yard.
| google234123 wrote:
| Neither side (the government and these companies) want to get
| involved with the other
| mistrial9 wrote:
| there are a dozen efforts and a lot of money (captured
| mainly), and yes, a lot of high-tech in play right now. one
| link:
|
| https://wifire.ucsd.edu/
| [deleted]
| kansface wrote:
| Wildfires in CA are a political issue that will only be
| solved via a political solution, but at present, there is
| absolutely no appetite to do so among the residents or
| politicians. Its like asking why Elon hasn't fixed healthcare
| or higher ed in the US.
| You-Are-Right wrote:
| But look how cool they can travel to space now!
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Unfortunately more fires are the only solution, due to the
| amount of fuel built up in California forests from a century of
| mismanagement. 2020 was the highest burn area on record with 4+
| million acres burnt, and we would need 10 years burning at this
| level to bring the state down to 1920 fuel levels. The sad part
| is that due to the amount of built up fuel, these fires will be
| very intense leaving moonscapes opposed to healthy forests.
|
| More prescribed burns in the spring and wet years may help, but
| I don't think the political willpower is there, given the
| liability if things get out of hand.
| jollybean wrote:
| That's very intriguing and doesn't seem to be part of the
| popular narrative. Is this 'consensus' science, i.e.
| generally accepted, or is this a novel take?
|
| Also what specifically has been 'mismanaged'? Wouldn't
| leaving nature to run it's course be a reasonable thing to
| do, or would this imply 'build up and then big fires every
| century'?
|
| Also, do you know if it's the same in Australia?
| kibwen wrote:
| Re: "popular narrative", I think this is just unfamiliarity
| with the source material. The unintentionally-disastrous
| fire management policies of the 1900s have been widely
| known since at least the Yellowstone Fire of 1988
| catapulted forest fires into the public eye: https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988#Fire...
|
| The problem is that nobody wants to acknowledge that fire
| is a necessary and constructive part of the ecosystem. So
| they build their homes in wildfire zones and support
| policies that suppress fires until the pot boils over and
| the fire turns from constructive to utterly destructive.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The science goes back far further than that. Scientists
| were advocating for natural burns in the 1930s, when the
| Roy Headley, chief of fire control for the Natural Forest
| Service, wanted to allow burns but was overruled.
| kibwen wrote:
| Indeed, I was trying to refer to broader understanding
| outside of the scientific establishment. It should be
| noted that the Yellowstone Fire of 1988 was actually a
| _success_ of proper fire management techniques
| established in the decades prior; if those hadn 't been
| in place, then the fires of 1988 would have been even
| worse. But to the public at the time who were uninitiated
| to the idea of the constructive power of regular forest
| fires, and facing the prospect of losing their most
| impressive national monument to fire, and after being
| inundated with decades of Smokey The Bear, it's no
| surprise that there was outrage at the forest management
| for allowing any fires to happen, despite their necessity
| (and eventual inevitability).
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| My understanding is that this is the scientific consensus
| as the main contribution with climate change as an
| exaserbating effect. Most media coverage focuses on the
| latter for more clicks.
|
| The mismanagement in this context is a century long policy
| of extinguishing natural fires and not letting nature 'run
| its course'.
|
| The policy was briefly lifted in the 60s or 70s do to
| overwhelming scientific opposition, but reinstated due to
| public outcry after a few iconic locations burned.
|
| The wikipedia below has some basic starting information,
| but generally whitewashes history, suggest that policy was
| corrected in the 80's. IF you dig deeper, around 100,000
| acres were allowed to burn per year on federal land in the
| 90's and 2000's, which is far too low.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppressi
| o...
|
| Slide 4 of the PDF below gives a an example of the fire
| frequency in the 1800s in comparison to 1900s.
|
| https://ucanr.edu/sites/firesummit/files/302800.pdf
|
| I have no clue about Aussie fire policy, sorry.
| bko wrote:
| > The enhanced rain is created using drone technology that
| unleashes electrical charges into clouds in order for them to
| clump together and form precipitation...Applying electrical
| shocks to clouds is preferred as it doesn't require the use of
| chemicals.
|
| Sounds pretty innocuous. I'm looking forward to reading comments
| about how this is dangerous and could cause unintended
| consequences. Only thing I can think of is perhaps that could
| reduce rainfall in neighboring areas which would have received
| the rain.
| hfjtntnfjfk wrote:
| Like many things, it's about quantity.
|
| Nobody would mind if there was one place on Earth which we
| would pollute in an extreme way. The problem is when we are
| polluting all over the place.
|
| Now imagine if every major city started doing weather
| engineering.
|
| It's unlikely that we would be able to have a giant effect,
| there is only so much energy we can put out, but local
| consequences could be pretty drastic. OTOH, local consequences
| will kind of fall in the same country.
| afavour wrote:
| > Only thing I can think of is perhaps that could reduce
| rainfall in neighboring areas which would have received the
| rain.
|
| ...which seems significant, no? If you fast forward to a water
| deprived future (uh, present?) and give nation states the
| ability to take water that would have fallen on neighbouring
| countries and take it for themselves... I don't see how that
| ends well.
|
| Don't get me wrong, the technology is fascinating and on purely
| technological terms it's a great development. But yes, it could
| lead to some strange outcomes.
| peeters wrote:
| It's not like this is a new concept. Geopolitical
| considerations come into play all the time with shared
| waterbodies. Canada and the U.S. have treaties governing the
| Great Lakes, Egypt threatens war with Ethiopia over the dam
| on the Blue Nile, etc.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Indeed
|
| https://columbiainsight.org/how-and-why-to-fix-the-u-s-
| canad...
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| The Tragedy of the Commons takes to the skies.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Monty Python's Flying Surcharge
| dr1s wrote:
| Clouds can also just evaporate if the temperature is hot
| enough, like in a desert. Regardless I think it's better to
| use this kind of method for cloud-seeding then the pumping
| chemicals into the air, which seems to be the common method.
| rjmunro wrote:
| If a cloud "evaporates", the water is still in the air and
| will condense into clouds and rain at some point somewhere
| else. It can't just disappear.
| nojito wrote:
| This already happens with dams which is arguably more
| devastating than rain cloud seeding.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Great point - also not to mention footgunning enormous
| bodies of water even within a nation
| http://www.columbia.edu/~tmt2120/introduction.htm
| Arrath wrote:
| Sounds like the next iteration of downstream countries
| getting mad at upstream countries building dams on rivers.
|
| E.G. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50328647
| Shadonototro wrote:
| that means other region won't have rain
|
| this should be illegal
| TroisM wrote:
| A bit like the US takes water from large rivers that used to go
| to Mexico? But are now dry river beds before getting to the
| border (Colorado river?)
| Thev00d00 wrote:
| Perhaps the scope of "Convention on the Law of the Non-
| Navigational Uses of International Watercourses" should be
| expanded, or similar legislation
| nanna wrote:
| I have a better suggestion. Quit pumping out oil. Deal with the
| root causes of climate change.
| parthdesai wrote:
| UAE actually doesn't rely much on oil at all.
| satokema_work wrote:
| so now we're saying weather control/manipulation is real then?
|
| i guess the conspiracy nuts were right again.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We've been openly trying it since at least the 1960s.
|
| The conspiracy nuts claim it's intentionally being used to make
| targeted natural disasters (and typically throw in chemtrail
| stuff), which is a very different claim than "we can probably
| increase rainfall a little bit'.
| jmiskovic wrote:
| I got interested in drone tech and this source has more info:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/27/middleeast/clouds-electri...
| haunter wrote:
| aka cloud seeding, a lot of country does this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
| cataflam wrote:
| > The enhanced rain is created using drone technology that
| unleashes electrical charges into clouds (..)
|
| > Applying electrical shocks to clouds is preferred as it
| doesn't require the use of chemicals.
|
| So, a bit different than cloud seeding
| aeroman wrote:
| The idea is pretty similar, in that the aim to to create
| cloud droplets large enough that precipitation forms in those
| clouds (hygroscopic cloud seeding). This is a little
| different from glaciogenic cloud seeding, where you aim to
| generate ice in a supercooled cloud (which has historically
| has been more common).
|
| Glaciogenic seeding typically uses something like silver
| iodide (to nucleate ice crystals). For the clouds over the
| UAE (which are not supercooled), table salt would be more
| likely to be used. This idea is that it can create cloud
| droplets that are large enough to begin the collision-
| coalesence process.
| dole wrote:
| Curious how saline that rain would end up being,
| detrimental to plant life, considerable corrosion for
| metals/cars/etc.
| Mvhsz wrote:
| Just guessing but I can't imagine they use as much salt
| as northern cities put on the road when it snows (dump
| trucks worth of salt). There's information for that at my
| local extension office [1]. The TL;DR is that plants
| don't love it, but they tolerate it. Grasses are
| especially tolerant.
|
| [1] https://plant-pest-advisory.rutgers.edu/impact-of-
| road-salt-...
| CountDrewku wrote:
| They do it at the ski resorts here in CO.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| I'm surprised they get even 4 inches of rain a year, but it seems
| like it's almost all in the winter. Assuming they can get another
| 4 inches during the summer, they can get as much rain as Phoenix.
| I wonder if this can dramatically change the landscape.
| cfn wrote:
| They probably get them in a few weather events every year. I
| lived in a place in the South of Portugal that, on paper, gets
| has much rain as, say, Berlin. The catch is that it would fall
| over 3 or 4 very strong downpours causing flooding and
| devastation.
| ratsforhorses wrote:
| I'd have thought with the amount of coffee grounds, leftover
| food and human manure from so many people, one could have
| turned their surrounding areas into a self sustaining green
| belt (with a little help from atmospheric water generation http
| s://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator#....
| hasmanean wrote:
| This is just cloud seeding. They've been doing it for decades,
| though not with drones.
| NationalPark wrote:
| The technique is different too. This uses electricity somehow
| instead of the chemical methods that are typically what people
| call "cloud seeding".
| sha256kira wrote:
| And didn't cloud seeding used to be chemical-based where this
| is electrical? Does that make this less sketchy?
| raverbashing wrote:
| I'm curious how places out there by the sea like Dubai are
| essentially a desert. Evaporation should be massive at those
| areas no?
| cryptonector wrote:
| Vegetation evaporates more water, faster, than the Sun shining
| on open water body surfaces.
|
| I've seen a picture from directly overhead of the Amazon river
| where you can see clouds forming directly over treetops on
| either side of the river, but not the tiniest wisp of cloud
| over the river itself.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This is actually the reason why Miami is one of the few major
| American cities that's never broken 100 F in recorded history.
| When temperatures rise significantly above 90, then the chance of
| rain goes to 100%, which cools things back down. It's pretty much
| why you get clockwork torrential downpours every afternoon in
| Florida summers.
| cle wrote:
| Tampa has that distinction for the same reason too. Afternoon
| thunderstorms can cause the temperature to drop sometimes by 20
| F!
| rootsudo wrote:
| Yep, loved Clearwater Summer rains and thunder. :)
| iso1631 wrote:
| Singapore, on the equator on the end of a peninsular and
| surrounded by the sea, has a record high of just 37C (98.6F),
| lower than the record highs of Finland, Sweden, the UK,
| Japan, Korea, Russia etc.
|
| The Maldives, also known for being reliably warm and just 4
| degrees north of the equator, has a high even lower, 34.9C,
| only a handful of countries have a high of lower than that
| (Iceland and Greenland being two)
|
| Of course they also have the highest record low temperatres
| (19C and 17.2C each)
| kop316 wrote:
| Would you minding explaining the phenomenon in a bit more
| detail, if you could?
|
| I thought that as air temperature rises, the air is able to
| absorb more heat, not less. And I thought rain was essentially
| the fact that there is too much moisture in the air, so it
| condenses. So this is counterintuitive to me (but I am likely
| missing something).
| rini17 wrote:
| The warmer air over land rises up, cooling in the process.
| But then water in it condenses and gives up heat, that
| supports the upward flow. So it's kind of runaway process.
| Eventually when there's too much water condensed, then it
| overcomes the upward flow and rains down.
|
| How it happens, and whether it happens at all, whether the
| rain won't evaporate in midair etc. depends on variety of
| conditions.
| kop316 wrote:
| Ohhh that makes sense. And since they are so close to
| water, there is always an amount of humidity in the air too
| I suppose.
|
| Thank you for the explanation!
| fritzo wrote:
| Scientific publication:
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atot/38/1/jtech-d...
| solarkraft wrote:
| > electrical charges into clouds in order for them to clump
| together and form precipitation
|
| So like ... real rain?
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