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UAE To Build Artificial Mountain To Improve Rainfall (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The United Arab Emirates is in the early stages of developing an artificial mountain that would force air upwards and create clouds that could produce additional rainfall. While the Middle East and Africa continues to get hotter, researchers are further motivated and more desperate for solutions to maximize rainfall. "Building a mountain is not a simple thing," said NCAR scientist and lead researcher Roelof Bruintjes. "We are still busy finalizing assimilation, so we are doing a spread of all kinds of heights, widths and locations [as we simultaneously] look at the local climatology." The specific location has yet to be decided on as the team is still testing out different sites across the UAE. "If [the project] is too expensive for [the government], logically the project won't go through, but this gives them an idea of what kind of alternatives there are for the long-term future." Bruintjes said. "If it goes through, the second phase would be to go to an engineering company and decide whether it is possible or not."
Seems to me it's easier to build a nice tall wall to block the wind and collect the moisture than it is a mountain. The wind and water won't know. Maybe even put some drainage ditches at the base of the wall to catch the rain. Hell, make the wall some 5-10 meters thick and fill it with apartments, retail, and office space.
The engineering challenges for this are insane. Just trying to move that much materiel would break the bank. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of desal + irrigating the whole country comes in at a lower price....
And make Zeus pay for it!
- The Donald
Table-ized A.I.
I suspect we'll see a lot of similar geo-hacks and assorted other climate hacks in the coming decades as weather patterns continue to change. Climate science in general will evolve far beyond what it is today, and may supplant tech as a primary driver of the world's economies. It's time to start steering our kids towards climatology and related fields.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.'
Have gnu, will travel.
Did you ever open a world map in your existence ???
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Probably West Virginia. More mountainous, on average, than Colorado (it's just not sitting on top of a one-to-two-mile-thick plateau).
Sounds more like the UAE is jealous of Qatar's single project death-toll record for the World Cup and is determined to take the crown. The ads are probably already going out in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines for the sorts of disposable slave labor the region favors for large civil projects.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
WTF did I just read?
How about shaping terrain to guide tornadoes on a specific path?
Remember when you proudly acquired your first bigscreen? You gave the old CRT set away to a thrift. A year or tw later, you replaced the bedroom set and the guest room set. What you found then is that charities no longer take working CRTs, and neither do landfills. Neither do recycling centers, even those special electronics days they have periodically. You can't throw a CRT away.
The garages of America can supply the "bricks" for the UAE's mountain. This is a business opportunity waiting.
Nip the problem in the bud.
If that isn't gosh golly gee wiz shiny tech for hyou then how about:
1) set up solar panels and wind turbines
2) use to power desalination plants
3) take said water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen
4) burn hydrogen fuel to power irrigation pumps to take the waste water from the combustion and extra water from desalinization and pumpit in land
5) use said water for reforestation.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
UAE creates man made mountain to grab rainfall. Every other country "close" will blame them for any change in rainfall and at least some of that is going to be legitimate. Impact from this is going to be felt far and wide, so anywhere between India, Italy, and Russia are potentially impacted. It is not far fetched that a country that used to be able to feed itself suddenly has a starving populace because they no longer get any rain.
Every country in the World threatens war over weather modification, and there are numerous countries that have long sought to master weather control for the purpose of war. UAE's intent may not be to harm neighbors but that's not always how things work out.
If the UAE was building desalination plants to irrigate with, it would be a very different story.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
a proper title would be "UAE Investigating The Possibility Of Constructing An Artificial Mountain" because they will likely find out it's far more costly than they expected.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Moisture vaporators
why would that stop them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
You have got to be kidding.
A quadratic function (or polynomial of degree two) is indeed on the form you specified.
But x to the 2nd power is not exponential, rather it's just an example of the quadratic function you mentioned, with b and c equal to zero and a equal to one.
f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c, which with a = 1, b = 0 and c = 0 becomes f(x) = x^2, which is quadratic and the same as "x to the 2nd power"
What IS exponential, is something like 2 to the xth power, or 2^x. But that's not what you wrote.
Hey!!! I know a guy who will do it for only $3 per cubic yard. Why pay $1.5 trillion? How about merely $238 billion?
But wait! There's more! I was talking with a guy who would be happy to sell the UAE the entire Mt. Rainier in Washington State for, oh, maybe $10,000. Then there would be the easy problem of moving it.
When I thought of this at first, I thought that the idea with a mountain is to chill the air, and there may be easier ways. Then, I thought desalination is going to be cheaper to make water than refrigerating the air, are they afraid they'll run out of sea water? But, sea levels rise with global warming, and my first impression of UAE was that it's pretty flat, so I thought, maybe they also want some artificial high ground to which they can retreat. Before commenting on that, though, I asked Google, what is the highest point in UAE? It turns out that Jabal Al Jais (over on the Eastern point, by Oman) is 1910 meters tall, and the satellite view shows that it doesn't have a wet side. Hawaii is closer to the equator, and mountains that are less tall have a wet side. This leads me to strongly think that the air may not be the best available resource for getting potable water. I'd try desalination of the stuff in which the artificial islands are built.
X to the 2nd power is exponential.
No. X^2 does not increase exponentially with X. It is not "exponential" in any meaningful sense. Would you say that X=1 is "exponential" with an exponent of zero?
When mathematicians, or algorithm designers, say something is "exponential", they mean it is a function with the variable of interest (in this case, the height of the hill) in the exponent. The volume of a hill, as a function of its height, is NOT exponential.
Seriously, if they are going this route, just build a glass dome. It would be much cheaper and easier to control the environment.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What about zero? Zero is an exponent. By that measure, my love life is improving exponentially...
Start building a decent sized pyramid and then, instead of stopping, carry on. Easy.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
A mountain captures the moist that would otherwise go elsewhere, if my country scarce irrigated spots became dry and without any rain because of my neighbors new mountain I'de like to do something about it ...
Cant this increase political tensions in the zone ?
You drifted away from the point. The original point was that those who are planning to build a mountain are not sufficiently aware of the enormous land area of the base.
There are some things you just learn to ignore. One of those things is the horrible misuses the word "exponentially" suffers. It's along the same line as "literally" which has, somehow, come to mean the same as "figuratively."
Hmm...
I have seen an exponential increase in the misuse of the expression! Just smile and nod, literally.
I'm going to hell, if there is one. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Even though rainfall could certainly partly tackle the ever-hotter weather, might it not be better to look underground? Qanats didn't hurt Iran in the long term.
The point wasn't to feel smart, just average. Your (?) comment above shows you don't have any idea about basic geography. No need to be smart for this, just to be open and to show interest in other people by knowing at least where they live.
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
The volume of a hill, as a function of its height, is NOT exponential
It is if you make the width an exponential function of the height!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They may build a big hill and declare victory, though.
In the process, a great deal of essentially slave labor will die.
At the end, they will have a big dirty hill that accomplishes nothing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The garbage mountain on E66 outside Dubai is well on its way already.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They want something that *functions* as a mountain. It doesn’t have to look like a regular mountain, and it doesn’t have to be solid all the way through. As someone else said, a wall might do the trick. And also, the structure could be hollow. Build a steel frame and cover it with inexpensive materials. As long as it has the desired effect, it doesn’t have to look like a mountain. And just imagine the uses that could be put to the interior as well. You could have an entire city in there in the shade. Presumably it would have to be mostly airtight, but if you made it out of translucent materials, then the amount of artificial light inside needn’t be extensive. Imagine a mountain made of plexiglass. Also, for something the size of a mountain, moisture would collect in the inner atmosphere, develop into clouds, and even rain sometimes. If the air inside is cooler than outside, they might want to limit air exchange (i.e. no active ventilation), requring that plants be grown inside to keep the oxygen levels up. Even pollution levels could be kept down if burning is kept to a minimum (no diesel or coal generators inside, but maybe short hydrocarbons like natural gas for cooking, if they even have a supply of it in there).
I’m sure there are a million caveats I’ll never think of, but if they’re going to build something that big, they might as well make it more useful than just a wall and even possibly make it give a return on the investment through taxes. It would require maintenance.
A steel frame the size of a mountain would probably cost 1,000x more than a mountain of dirt and rocks.
What you are talking about is building a Burj Khalifa times 100. No small feat.
Thanks for the analysis.
> What to use as a lifting gas would be a big question. Helium ... Hydrogen ... Methane
UAE has a plentiful supply of hot air. If the fabric/skin were black, it may well keep the air hot enough.
Letting people get away with using the word "exponential" as a figurative description of increase is common, but when people use that word in the strict mathematical sense and incorrectly state that x^2 is exponential . . well, that's a different matter entirely.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
In a nuclear, or radioactive, decay formula, the variable that is in the exponent is t, for time. What are these other "numerous" examples you speak of?
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Sounds like they're planning to build a giant Evil Knievel ramp.
First they need to research Environmental Economics
My suggestion to all the oil countries is to spend their money on zero or low maintenance projects when it comes to the super fundamentals such as water and electricity. There will be a day when fossil oil goes the way of the whale oil industry. At that point these countries will have large populations who need electricity, water, roads, and hopefully agriculture.
Therefore it would be a good investment to have inefficiently (today) built up an infrastructure that can sustain them post oil wealth. Step one would be to build something that keeps people alive. Step two would be to continue to keep expanding it so that people might even thrive post oil.
The key is that it be designed so that its ongoing costs are minimal. Not just a huge white elephant that can't be maintained the moment the oil runs out.
If they think hot is bad they obviously haven't experienced heat and high humidity. I also wonder if creating lakes and canals might not be better than trying to build mountains. Or they could create waterfalls down the sides of buildings if they really want cooling and are willing to take on the humidity. They certainly have enough solar energy at hand to pump quite a bit of water to the tops of buildings.
Letting people get away with using the word "exponential" as a figurative description of increase is common, but when people use that word in the strict mathematical sense and incorrectly state that x^2 is exponential . . well, that's a different matter entirely.
I remember getting in an argument with someone who felt that using the word exponential to describe an expected 3% growth per annum was hyperbole. I tried to point out that it met the literal definition, since the function was 1.03^x, but they wouldn't believe me.
He effected a bored affect.
X to the 2nd power is exponential.
No. X^2 does not increase exponentially with X.
But it does increase exponentially with 2, which is clearly what he meant. For large values of 2, X^2 is HUGE!
If you have a fruit tree in Ras al Basit that bears no fruit, you might want to plant another tree. If you have a fruit tree in Qatrun that bears no fruit, you might want to find a different location for planting fruit trees. The rain that falls on mountains comes from moisture in the air. If the moisture is there, the rain will fall. If you see a big mountain and rain does not fall, this is a pretty clear indication that the moisture isn't there.
UAE has access to large amounts of sea water, large amounts of carbon and of methane (inside hydrocarbons). As it turns out a carbon product, graphene, is really efficient at desalination. UAE could build the world's biggest graphene factory and use some of that graphene to make lots of fresh water. The rest of the graphene could be used for the ninety zillion other fantastical miraculous things that graphene does amazingly well.
The rain that falls on mountains comes from moisture in the air. If the moisture is there, the rain will fall. If you see a big mountain and rain does not fall, this is a pretty clear indication that the moisture isn't there.
Or that the mountain is in the wrong place, or the wrong shape, or not tall enough.
Moisture exists in the troposphere at various altitudes, so clearly the problem is that the current mountain is simply too short.
Cool, so how much taller than 1900 meters?
I lived in the UAE for a couple years. There is a mountain in AlAin and mountains up in the Fujeriah/Musandam area... but the real reason I thought this was a joke is because the infrastructure there is not designed to handle rain. Whenever it rains, cars wreck and overturn due to poor road drainage and ceilings collapse - see the AbuDhabi airport as an example. That's why I thought it was a joke... not that building a mountain is impossible or anything. They are well on their way to making a trash mountain between Sharjah and Dubai... if they could just convince people not to litter on the streets it would already be complete.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
No idea. But based on other mountains that have regular snow on them, probably upwards of 3000 metres.
I looked around a little, and for a granite mountain, you probably don't want a height to width ratio of more than 2.5:1 Given this ratio, and that the smallest mountain of that height would be a cone, then we can do a little math. The volume of a cone is (1/3)*pi*r**2*h where r is half the width of the mountain at the base and h is the height. With the above ratio, r = h/5, so you have volume = (1/75)*pi*h**3 So for the smallest 3000 metre mountain, only 1.13 cubic kilometres of granite. With lower strength rocks, you'd probably want a wider base, or perhaps, with semi-autonomous solar powered lasers, you could build a sintered mountain of glass. If people wanted to live inside the sintered glass mountain, you could then have some fun calculating the necessary exclusions to provide the appropriate infrastructure (air, water & sewage pipes & pumping stations, power conduit, living spaces, human transit spaces, etc) versus the necessary quantity of unexcluded material to provide structural strength to see how many people could safely make their home in the glass mountain. Then, with a cross sectional design, you could start the planet's biggest 3-D printing project so far.
If zero is the exponent for your love life, then you do have one. Exactly one.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So for the smallest 3000 metre mountain, only 1.13 cubic kilometres of granite.
That sounds like a lot, but if you're getting thousands of years of benefit from it, effectively free after the initial outlay, it might be viable.
Just googled some mining operations for comparison (since no-one really builds mountains), and some of them are moving half a million tons of stuff a day. So if my maths is right that's about 6 years worth of material from a large a mine.
A nice sized salt lake would be better. Pump in ocean water. You don't have to desalinate it. The sun and heat will evaporate the water into the air and create more rain all around the area. Plus the water will seep into the ground, which will filter out most the salt and increase the ground water.