The country has recorded huge amounts of rain due to a combination of nature and science.
The United Arab Emirates has received sustained rainfall for the past two weeks, mainly due to cloud sowing.
On the first two days of Eid Al Adha, rains lashed parts of the UAE, with further forecasts for the weekend. The first day of Eid saw rain accompanied by lightning and thunder.
Dr. Ahmed Habib of the National Center of Meteorology (NCM) previously told the Khaleej Times that the country has low pressure in the summer due to the monsoons in India, which increases temperatures especially in the eastern parts with the possibility of rainy convection clouds.
He noted that the heavy to moderate rainfall in the country in July was due to the convective cloud formation to the east that is typical of the summer.
“Cloud sowing operations continue to be carried out in the country to increase rainfall. If convective cloud formation occurs, cloud sowing operations will be carried out to increase rainfall,” Habib said.
How traditional technology improves rainfall
Cloud seeding is a method of artificially making a cloud produce rain. It started in the United Arab Emirates in the late 1990s, and since then the number of missions conducted annually has increased. The UAE conducted 247 missions in 2019, up from 184 in 2018.
Cloud seeding involves flying an airplane to a cloud that has tiny raindrops in it. The plane shoots salt flares into the cloud to add to the precipitation.
Omar Al Yazeed, Director of Research at Training at NMC, previously stated that for successful seeding, an aircraft would be sent into the cumulus clouds in the early stages of development after experts predicted there might be rain. After collecting data, they do the seeding.
“And after the type of cumulus clouds with the best rain potential has been determined, the team at Al Ain Base will be on standby to perform the actual operation,” he said, explaining that a single operation can take anywhere from two to three hours to complete. to be completed, depending on the number of target clouds.
According to the NCM, the country has seen tremendous amounts of rain in recent years due to a combination of nature and science, with cloud seeding playing a significant role in triggering rainfall.
The UAE cloud seeding base is located at Al Ain Airport as it is close to the mountains and has a small window to reach the clouds.
Al Yazeed previously said that there is currently no technology that can measure the amount of rain generated by cloud sowing, but stressed that it increases the amount of rainfall in the cloud by 30 to 35 percent.
Soil Based Seeding Generators
In addition to aircraft, the NCM has been using ground-based seeding generators for its rain reinforcement operations in the UAE since March 2019.
The new process uses environmentally friendly and alternative techniques and complements traditional cloud seeding, which is carried out with the help of special aircraft.
The generators are equipped with 48 special torches that are loaded with salt crystals and shot into convective or warm clouds, accompanied by updrafts or rising air currents. The updraft then sucks the salt crystals into the clouds, said an NCM official.
“The salts attract tiny water droplets and collide with others to intensify the coalescence process, which accelerates the growth of water droplets in the clouds to larger ones, which eventually leads to rains,” he said.
In addition, there are several research proposals that the UAE intends to implement over the next few years.
In March 2021, the United Arab Emirates announced that it would test drones that fly in clouds and generate a small electrical charge to generate rain.
According to the National Center for Meteorology, this new method could efficiently replace the traditional cloud sowing, which involves depositing solid particles in the clouds.
These drones will instead change the charge balance between the raindrops, encouraging them to mix and fall to the ground as rain. Charge emission technology uses a small and lightweight platform to deliver cargo into the clouds rather than traditional cloud seeding payloads that require much larger aircraft. This method does not emit solid particles such as silver iodide or salt in clouds.
The cloud seeding projects managed by the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science continue to help expand new knowledge about cloud seeding through dynamic scientific and technological innovations.
These efforts reaffirm the UAE’s global leadership in developing rain improvement research, as well as its ambitious vision and commitment to using modern technology to truly improve human life around the world, especially in arid regions.
ismail@khaleejtimes.com
