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Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

independent.co.uk

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#31
post #26

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.

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.

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.

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#34
post #16
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fascinati…

This already happens with dams which is arguably more devastating than rain cloud seeding.

Great point - also not to mention footgunning enormous bodies of water even within a nation http://www.columbia.edu/~tmt2120/introduction.htm

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#35

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!"...

Reminds me of Red Alert 2 https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Weather_control_device_(Red_Aler...

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#36
post #2

> 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 pe…

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.

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#38
post #26

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.

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.

it’s also not just the shade. for some reason plant cover is significantly cooler than just shade. i am not sure why

Re: Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat

#40

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.

Perhaps saltiness?
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