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@bias
if they can do this in Dubai.. why can’t LA do this during fire season? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dubai-rain-cloud-seeding-heat-weather/
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kripcat.eth
@kripcat.eth
Cloud seeding doesn't create moisture. It pulls together existing moisture in the air until it is heavy enough to precipitate and fall out of the sky as rain. Humidity in LA during the peak of the fires was 5-15%; which is part of the reason the fires were so devasting, most vegetation is heavily desiccated by humidity that low, especially combined with high temperatures, and so highly flammable. Humidity in Dubai is routinely between 55-65%.
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@bias
Thank you for the insight. I didn’t think about the humidity precondition, but that makes some sense.. so then LA would really just need technology to increase the humidity quickly into similar percentages in collaboration with the other cloud seeding tech
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kripcat.eth
@kripcat.eth
I think to increase localised humidity you’d need some kind of water atomiser or evaporation system. But the scale would have to be enormous to have any meaningful impact and you’d need access to a lot of water and a lot of energy. I don’t think it’s something that could be done at short notice or without pre-existing fixed infrastructure. Might be something that wealthy coastal cities in fire prone areas deploy as a climate adaption measure in the distant future. The strong winds which accompanied these fires (and which simultaneously fanned the flames and further desiccated vegetation) would also increase the difficulty of artificially creating local humidity because they’d rapidly whip away any atmospheric moisture introduced artificially. But @aviationdoctor.eth is probably more qualified to speak on the topic than me.
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
@kripcat.eth is right, you need preexisting moisture to cloud seed. If the area is arid, what’s key is to plant as many trees as possible. Trees release moisture into the atmosphere. This should be an integral part of urban design
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kripcat.eth
@kripcat.eth
Good to point out that trees don't strictly create moisture either. Transpiration is a very similar mechanism to a straw. With the difference in water potential between the atmosphere (typically drier) and the soil (typically wetter) driving water from the soil through the xylem & stomata and then out into the atmosphere. If there is no soil moisture transpiration will either shut down through some evolutionary mechanism (usually closing stomata) or the plant will desiccate and die (and be flammable). Sealing off the soil with buildings and roads is a great way to increase run off, reduce water infiltration and artificially limit soil moisture available to trees.
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