Artificial Rain by Zapping the clouds : Dubai
The United Arab Emirates, which has been scorched by heatwaves and an arid climate, is experimenting with a novel technique that uses electricity to zap clouds and make rain artificially. This Artificial rain making is known as cloud seeding.
Cloud seeding in various kinds has been around for decades. According to the Desert Research Institute, the procedure has traditionally employed salt flairs and has raised worries about the environment, costs, and effectiveness.
According to reports from multiple sources, the UAE is reportedly testing a new technology in which drones fly into clouds and deliver an electric shock, causing rain to fall.
Just after UAE’s National Center of Meteorology recently posted a series of videos on Instagram exhibiting heavy rain in several locations of the country, the initiative has reawakened interest. Cars drove on saturated roads as water flowed through trees. The videos were accompanied by “#cloudseeding” radar photographs of clouds.
Recent rain, according to the Independent, is part of a drone cloud seeding project.
Success has been achieved in the United States, as well as in China, India, and Thailand. According to studies released by the American Meteorological Society, long-term cloud seeding in the Nevada highlands has enhanced snowpack by 10% or more per year. According to the State of Wyoming, a 10-year cloud seeding experiment in Wyoming resulted in 5–10% increases in snowpack.
According to Scientific American, the method is utilised in at least eight states in the western United States and dozens of countries.
According to the website of the National Center of Meteorology, the UAE was one of the first countries in the Arab Gulf region to adopt cloud seeding technology.
The goal of the UAE’s experiment, according to Maarten Ambaum, a researcher who worked on the drone programme, is to disrupt the balance of electrical charge on cloud droplets, enabling water droplets to clump together and fall as rain when they are large enough.
According to the centre, the activities are part of the UAE’s ongoing “quest to secure water security” since the 1990s through the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement.
According to the National Center of Meteorology website, water security remains one of the UAE’s “major future issues,” as the country relies on groundwater for two-thirds of its water demands.
According to the centre, the desert nation confronts minimal rainfall, high temperatures, and significant evaporation rates of surface water.According to the institute, this, together with growing demand due to significant population growth, puts the UAE in a perilous water security situation.
Rain enhancement, on the other hand, may “provide a feasible, cost-effective addition to existing water supplies,” especially in light of the world’s dwindling water resources, according to the institute.
According to the organisation, “although most of us take free water for granted, we must remember that it is a vital and scarce resource.”
According to a 2021 study headed by the American University of Sharjah, cloud seeding programmes may have improved the UAE’s air quality in recent years.
As per the National Center of Meteorology website, rain augmentation efforts have so far focused on the country’s hilly north-east regions, where cumulus clouds congregate in the summers.
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