Scientists find the fingerprints of climate change on Dubai’s deadly floods

3 comments

1. The record-breaking rain that fell over the United Arab Emirates and Oman this month, triggering deadly floods and chaos, was [driven partly by the climate crisis](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/25/climate/dubai-floods-climate-weather-analysis-int/index.html), according to a scientific analysis published Thursday, which pointed directly at humans burning fossil fuels.

   A team of 21 scientists and researchers, under the [World Weather Attribution](https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/heavy-precipitation-hitting-vulnerable-communities-in-the-uae-and-oman-becoming-an-increasing-threat-as-the-climate-warms) initiative, found that climate change was making extreme rainfall events in the two countries — which typically fall during El Niño years — between 10 and 40% more intense than they would have been without global warming.

   Over a period of less than 24 hours between April 14 and 15, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rainfall in since records began 75 years ago. Dubai — a glitzy desert city accustomed to going months with no precipitation at all — experienced the equivalent of more than a year and a half’s worth of rain in that time, the analysis said.

   Using scientific models, the team was unable to determine precisely how much more likely climate change had made the floods.

   However, they concluded global warming was the “most likely” driver of the record rainfall, because the atmosphere in a 1.2-degree warmer world can now hold 8.4% more moisture, which is making extreme rain events more intense. Changing circulation patterns driven by global warming are also increasing rainfall intensity, the analysis noted.

2. If Dubai keeps getting rain and the rest of Middle East doesn’t. Bye Bye Dubai

3. I mean didn’t they themselves seed their clouds? I’m ignorant of the complexities of cloud seeding but maybe someone had a miscalculation somewhere along the way.