Live data from Hacker News

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

independent.co.uk

71–80 of 107 posts

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

#71
post #52
post #39

Could this be used in California as an additional fire extinguishing method?

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 yar…

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.

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

#72

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.

Tampa has that distinction for the same reason too. Afternoon thunderstorms can cause the temperature to drop sometimes by 20 F!

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

#74

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.

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.

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

#76
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

For which the quote happened to be on last night's jeopardy...

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

#77

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.

> brining kids out in this type of heat

But dry-brining is all the rage right now anyway.

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

#78
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

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.

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

#79
post #72

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.

Tampa has that distinction for the same reason too. Afternoon thunderstorms can cause the temperature to drop sometimes by 20 F!

Yep, loved Clearwater Summer rains and thunder. :)

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

#80
post #72

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.

Tampa has that distinction for the same reason too. Afternoon thunderstorms can cause the temperature to drop sometimes by 20 F!

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)

Post reply on HN