Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122°F heat • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by dylan604 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

thebean11 wrote: post #30

_Understated_ wrote: post #6

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!"...

If you have the ability to freely fly a bunch of drones in enemy territory there’s a lot of stuff you can do.

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.

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

#42

Post by pier25 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #21

truculent wrote: post #7

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.

> 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.

This reminded me of the "I drink your milkshake" scene from "There Will Be Blood".

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

#43

Post by anomaloustho » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

matt_f wrote: post #37

Question! Is there any reason this technique could not be applied to solve the Oregon wildfires?

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

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

#44

Post by sha256kira » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

hasmanean wrote: post #33

This is just cloud seeding. They’ve been doing it for decades, though not with drones.

And didn't cloud seeding used to be chemical-based where this is electrical? Does that make this less sketchy?

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

#45

Post by kamranjon » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

matt_f wrote: post #37

Question! Is there any reason this technique could not be applied to solve the Oregon wildfires?

Lack of clouds during wildfire conditions would be my guess

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

#46

Post by raverbashing » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

I'm curious how places out there by the sea like Dubai are essentially a desert. Evaporation should be massive at those areas no?

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

#47

Post by dcolkitt » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

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.

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

#48

Post by Arrath » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #3

bko wrote: 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…

> 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…

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

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

#49

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

> electrical charges into clouds in order for them to clump together and form precipitation

So like … real rain?

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

#50

Post by NationalPark » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

hasmanean wrote: post #33

This is just cloud seeding. They’ve been doing it for decades, though not with drones.

The technique is different too. This uses electricity somehow instead of the chemical methods that are typically what people call "cloud seeding".