As I took the girls around Mount Trosa this afternoon, I noticed that the artificial snow was close to completely gone. It made me wonder about the current situation in Dubai where they have had more rain than they’ve ever had. Well, since records began, 75 years ago.
I read a piece a few weeks ago about how the UAE regularly seeds clouds because they reckon it’s too hot in the desert. I would imagine it’s too hot in the desert because of climate change, mostly brought on by greenhouse gases, a lot of which the UAE is responsible for.
The way they seed clouds is they hit cumulus cloud formations with salt crystals, mixed with magnesium, sodium chloride and potassium chloride. This is usually delivered from light aircraft, though sometimes rockets will launch it all from the ground.
Cloud poisoning aside, the UAE is wealthy because of the production of oil and, these days as the reserves shrink, tourism. They built Dubai and rave about how wonderful it is in order to get the tourists flocking in. I see the ads regularly on various platforms. The UAE is also a bit of a tax haven for those wealthy enough who want to remain that way rather than pay their social debts.
While religious tolerance is pretty good in the UAE, the place believes in Allah in a very big way. Or does it? I mean, if one believes that a god created everything, then I’m surprised that people believe that his plan should be tampered with by making rain where rain has no right to be. Mind you, during the pandemic, like a lot of countries, the UAE closed all their places of worship, so I guess their belief isn’t that real.
Anyway, a lot of commentators have written that the recent floods in Dubai were not caused by cloud seeding. Maybe that’s right, I don’t know. Something I do know is that it’s a shame that human engineering is used to change and, subsequently, destroy our climate rather than preserve it for future generations.
It occurs to me that those who believe in a god believe he has a plan. Or so I’ve heard. If that plan is to eradicate humans, then we’re doing a pretty good job of implementing his plan. Apparently he tried a flood before, and it worked but, Dubai proves he’s lost his touch.
Cloud seeding may be the helping hand that gods need these days.
By the way, regarding how artificial snow is made:
In addition to water, compressed air and a nucleating material are also required to make snow. The compressed air is obtained using a pump. The nucleating agent is a biodegradable protein, which causes water molecules to form crystals at a higher temperature than normal. It is obtained from a nontoxic strain of a bacterium called Pseudomonas syringae. On average, this material can increase the amount of snow produced by a machine by 50%. It also helps produce lighter, drier flakes.
Available online at: https://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Artificial-Snow.html
It also uses a lot of water, but I guess that is replaced as the snow melts. The field in which they dumped loads of their snow at the base of Mount Trosa, is now a bit of a sodden bog.
Something else I discovered today is that the predominant language spoken in the UAE is English. I thought that was interesting, though not surprising. The Emirates was basically established by UK and US business interests. And, moving forward, I’m sure that it continues to ensure floods of international tourists and businesses.
And now, watery floods as well.
