Dubai experienced a deluge of rain on Tuesday, causing flooding in parts of the city and leading to the temporary closure of the world's second-busiest airport. The heavy downpour has sparked speculation about whether the United Arab Emirates' cloud-seeding program played a role in the unusual weather event.

Officials from the UAE's National Center of Meteorology have stated that the rain was not a result of cloud seeding. CNN has reached out to the center for further comment. Even if the program did conduct cloud-seeding activities leading up to the storm, experts argue that the likelihood of it significantly increasing precipitation is exceedingly low.

Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique aimed at enhancing rainfall or snowfall from clouds. It involves introducing tiny particles, such as silver iodide, into existing clouds, which encourages the formation of more water or ice droplets. When these droplets merge and become heavy enough, they fall to the Earth as rain or snow.

While cloud seeding has been practiced for decades, there is limited evidence to support its effectiveness. Determining the impact of cloud seeding on precipitation is challenging due to the lack of controlled experiments. Researchers have attempted to quantify its effectiveness, with a 2020 study suggesting that one cloud seeding experiment may have produced up to 10% more precipitation than would have occurred naturally.

However, skepticism remains within the scientific community. Climate scientist Daniel Swain from UCLA emphasizes the need for controlled studies that demonstrate a meaningful increase in precipitation due to cloud seeding.

As the world experiences the effects of climate change, regions are becoming hotter and drier. Cloud seeding may be seen as a potential solution to bring water to areas in need, but it could also have unintended consequences. Swain points out that cloud seeding may result in a zero-sum game, where water is taken from one region to benefit another, leading to drier conditions downstream.

The recent torrential rainfall in Dubai was not solely limited to areas participating in cloud seeding. The heavy rain was caused by a large, slow-moving storm system that traveled across the Arabian Peninsula and into the Gulf of Oman over several days. Forecast models had predicted this extreme weather event in advance.

Experts predict that such intense rainfall events will become more frequent as the atmosphere continues to warm, allowing it to hold more moisture and unleash it as heavy rainfall, leading to increased flooding.

While the debate over the effectiveness and potential consequences of cloud seeding continues, it is clear that the recent flooding in Dubai was primarily driven by a powerful storm system rather than the cloud-seeding program.