The National Advisor Bureau Limited on Tuesday announced plans to tow icebergs from Antarctica to Fujairah coast as a new source of freshwater in the region.
The Masdar City-based company said in a statement that the move could cause a significant climate change in the region as cold air gushing out from an iceberg close to the shores of the Arabian Sea would cause a trough and rainstorms all year round.
The UAE Icebergs Project aims to tow icebergs to Fujairah and is part of the Rub’ El Amer (Filling The Empty Quarter) projects, designed to transform the Empty Quarter deserts into gardens, including the Khalifa River Project, designed to connect Pakistan’s rivers to the UAE through undersea pipelines.
The company said icebergs off the coast of Fujairah will also become a unique tourist attraction.
Under the plan, melting icebergs will release fresh water into the Arabian Sea in a bid to rebuild ecological balance, reduce seawater salinity caused by brine discharge from desalination plants and restore biodiversity, the statement said.
The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest mass of ice on Earth with ten thousand trillion tons of snow and ice and contains most of the world’s fresh water.
An iceberg contains around 20 billion gallons of fresh water.
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