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By Vivek Saini
Claim: Chemtrails behind the recent flooding in San Diego.
Fact: The recent flooding in San Diego was caused by a natural weather phenomenon, a series of atmospheric rivers that brought heavy rain to the area. Chemtrails are a conspiracy theory with no scientific evidence to support their existence.
Claim post:
What does the post say
The viral post, initially shared by Matt Baker on X (formerly Twitter) and later reshared by others, claimed that chemtrails caused the recent flooding in San Diego.
The post explicitly mentioning “chemtrails” as the cause of the flooding, includes a video clip from a meeting, likely misrepresenting its content and purpose.
What we found
The flooding in San Diego was well-documented by credible news sources, including the National Weather Service (NWS). The NWS attributed the flooding to atmospheric rivers, long, narrow bands of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere. The claim that chemtrails caused the flooding is a conspiracy theory circulating online for many years. There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of chemtrails, and numerous experts have debunked the theory. The clip shared in the post discusses cloud seeding, a weather modification technique that involves introducing small particles into clouds to encourage precipitation. Cloud seeding is a legitimate scientific practice, but it is not related to chemtrails and is not used to cause flooding.
San Diego’s recent flash floods
San Diego has recently been ravaged by a series of devastating flash floods, causing widespread damage and tragically claiming several lives. While some have resorted to fringe theories like chemtrails to explain these events, the truth lies in well-understood climatic phenomena.
The culprit behind these floods is a weather pattern known as an atmospheric river. These narrow bands of concentrated moisture transport vast amounts of water vapor from the tropics, often leading to excessive rainfall upon reaching land. In California, the atmospheric river caused record-breaking precipitation, overwhelming the state’s drainage systems and triggering mudslides in fire-scarred landscapes.
The rains transformed arid regions into wet landscapes, turning trickles into streams and streams into torrents. In Southern California, numerous unhoused individuals seek hidden camping spots to avoid police sweeps, often settling along riverbeds, under bridges, and in tunnels—areas now inundated due to the storms. The recent storm triggered hundreds of landslides and mudslides in California, causing significant hardship for over 181,000 people grappling with homelessness across the state, particularly those living outdoors.
The recent flooding is a stark reminder of the genuine dangers posed by climate change. A warming planet leads to more extreme weather events, including vital atmospheric rivers and intense precipitation. These factors, coupled with factors like local land use and fire history, contribute to the severity of flooding and mudslides.
Chemtrails vs Contrails
Well, contrails emerge when water vapor and fine soot particles from burning jet fuel freeze into ice crystals. In instances of low air humidity, these crystals disperse, but in conditions of higher humidity, they persist and create visible vapor trails across expansive sections of the sky. The humidity variations explain why some aircraft leave visible trails while others do not.
In high humidity, vapor trails can endure for extended periods, forming thin layers of cirrus clouds at elevated altitudes. Meteorologist Aidan McGivern from the Met Office explained that cirrus clouds are brief, detached, hair-like formations at high altitudes. Moreover, he noted that it is unlikely for any alleged chemicals in these clouds to reach ground level due to their significant height.
A persistent belief among proponents of the chemtrail theory is that early morning chemtrails contribute to increased cloud cover later in the day. However, the Met Office counters this by attributing such cloud development to the natural convection process. This occurs as the sun warms the ground, prompting warm air to rise and condense into clouds later in the day. Chemtrail conspiracy believers often differentiate between typical airliner engine exhaust contrails and the enduring trails formed under specific atmospheric conditions, which they label chemtrails.
According to atmospheric scientists, the presence, duration, or persistence of contrails depends solely on local atmospheric conditions, primarily humidity and temperature. In arid air, contrails either don’t form or last briefly. Specifically, if the air is supersaturated for ice formation, the water vapor in exhaust contrails rapidly transforms into ice particles. This transformation can result in persistent trails, which some interpret as evidence of ‘chemtrails.’
The Chemtrails conspiracy theory
The concept of chemtrails revolves around the notion that governments or other entities are covertly executing a program to disperse toxic substances into the atmosphere through aircraft resembling contrails. Speculations about motivations include sterilization, life expectancy reduction, mind control, or even weather manipulation.
Nevertheless, the evidential foundation for this theory remains notably feeble. Most arguments rely on subjective observations claiming contrails appear “different,” lacking a comprehensive comparative analysis. This is akin to asserting the presence of aliens among us based on peculiar behavior, emphasizing the need for substantive proof. To substantiate such an extraordinary claim, robust evidence is indispensable. Presently, there is a shortage of compelling proof supporting a large-scale covert program. Assertions primarily rest on subjective assessments of contrail disparities without thorough examination. Analogous to positing alien presence from unusual behavior, it underscores the imperative for substantial verification.
Operating a program of the alleged magnitude would necessitate intricate operations encompassing material production, loading procedures, and widespread dissemination. The envisioned scale would involve thousands or even tens of thousands of individuals. Maintaining confidentiality in such an operation would be a demanding task, given the potential for a single insider to disclose information through leaked documents, photographs, or tangible hardware.
Click here to read our earlier debunk on chemtrails.
References:
- https://climatefactchecks.org/posts-falsely-claim-climate-change-is-a-scam-created-using-chemtrails/
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/04/california-atmospheric-river-weather-forecast-flooding/72471656007/
- https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/02/06/the-jan-22-floods-displaced-more-than-1000-san-diegans-from-their-homes/
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/08/california-floods-worsen-homelessness-crisis/72512060007/
- https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/23/flash-floods-inundate-homes-in-san-diego-its-never-been-that-bad
- https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/01/california-homeless-point-in-time-count-2024/
- https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-62240071.amp
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