Thursday March 28th, 2024
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The UAE Is Importing Icebergs from Antarctica

A UAE-based company announces plans to bring fresh water by towing icebergs from Antarctica to the country's shores.

Staff Writer

A Masdar City-based company announced that it will be working to tow icebergs from Antarctica to the emirate of Fujairah, explaining that it plans to extract fresh water from the icebergs. Speaking to Gulf News, National Adviser Bureau Limited's managing director Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi stated that the average iceberg contains more than 20 billion gallons of water, enough to provide drinking water for one million people over a five-year period.

Despite the blistering heat of the Arab Gulf during the summer months, the icebergs are still expected to melt slowly. Around 80 percent of most icebergs are submerged underwater, and most of the sun's heat is deflected by the ice.

Al Shehi went to say that the presence of the icebergs would have a cooling effect on the region and bring more rainfall to the arid climate. He also predicted that it could become a major tourist attraction.

During a time when the world is already losing destructive amounts of ice due to climate change, if the project proves to be profitable, it could potentially kick off a global scramble to harvest the ice caps.