Dubai’s Rain Machine

The UAE (United Arab Emirates) is a middle eastern nation that seldom sees a drop of rain, due to its geographical positioning and climate factors. But the rich people of UAE really liked the rain. In fact, they liked it so much that they were willing to make it happen themselves, defying the laws of nature. In 1982, the country started experimenting on ways for generating artificial rain, and by July of 2010, they had successfully generated rainstorms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi

How are they actually doing this?

The government, funded by the upper class of the nation, experimented with something called cloud seeding, in which certain ‘seed’-like objects made up of chemicals like silver iodide are implanted into suitable clouds with the help of planes which release the seeds onto the clouds from above. The suitable clouds are selected through weather forecasts. The salts present in these seeds are then released as the shell hatches open. These salts become the rain droplets, and when the cloud becomes heavy enough, these rain droplets fall to the ground as rain. This has helped the nation in agriculture, and also to fight against water scarcity. Big nations like the Republic of China have also been known to be practitioners of Cloud Seeding.

The method of generating rain is truly impressive. It has been beneficial for increasing precipitation in drought prone areas, which are in an abundance in the UAE, and has also aided in managing water resources. But certain environmental concerns were also raised, such as the dangers of the use of chemicals in the ‘seeds’, of which there has not been any negative result, yet. 

#Cloud Seeding #Dubai #UAE