Dubai airport underwater: Future climate change projects increase in rare rainfall events

Image: The Landsat 9 images above show the city and surrounding area on April 3 (left) and April 19 (right), before and after the storms. Source: NASA Earth Observatory

On April 17, 2024, major highways and Dubai’s international airport were flooded by torrential precipitation that poured one and a half years’ worth of rainfall in hours. Meteorological sources show that more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rain accumulated before the end of the day. This figure greatly exceeds Dubai’s average annual rainfall of 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) at its international airport. 

Scientist term this as a rare event triggered by a low-pressure system in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, high dust particle content in the air and man-made cloud seeding. A low-pressure system is attributed to convergence of warmer air and oceans amplified by climate change effects such as melting polar regions. Warmer oceans create atmospheric conditions conducive to formation of multiple thunderstorms that have a landfall on cities posing a heavy flooding risk to human life and infrastructure. 

Furthermore, another study projects that ”by the end of this century, daily land rainfall extremes could increase in magnitude between 10.5% and 28.2% for annual events, and between 13.5% and 38.3% for centennial events, for low and high emission scenarios respectively.” Therefore, considering that the Dubai flooding is a 1 in 100-year type of event, there will be 14 to 38 of these by the end of the century. 

As climate change effects intensify and we seek technological solutions, it is equally important to study the adverse or negative maladaptation impacts some solutions may bring. 

Image : Thunderstorm formation in the Arabian Peninsula.
Source: https://www.ventusky.com/?p=25.0;58.6;5&l=cape&t=20240417/15&src=link

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