UAE to ramp up country’s cloud seeding project to boost annual rainfall

  • Date: 10-Aug-2022
  • Source: Al Arabiya
  • Sector:Technology
  • Country:UAE
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UAE to ramp up country’s cloud seeding project to boost annual rainfall

Scientists are stepping up cloud seeding programsacross the United Arab Emirates to encourage rainfall and tackle a shortage of natural water resources, saying the technology can help increase annual downpours by up to 25 percent.

For 22 years, the country has been at the forefront of rain-enhancement science to increase annual rainfall across its arid climate, Omar al-Yazeedi, director of research, development and training at the National Center of Meteorology, told Al Arabiya English.

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The National Center of Meteorology is the task force behind the country’s cloud-seeding program.

Explaining the technology being used, he said that it is not simply sending aircrafts into the sky to inject chemical particles into clouds.

Scientists use a technique of weather modification that takes place at the base of the cloud using hygroscopic materials.

“These materials such as salt (sodium chloride, potassium chloride), are carried out by updrafts into the middle of the cloud, that will start to activate the condensation process, where the water vapor in the cloud, starts to condense on these materials,” he said. “These materials also adsorb the tiny cloud droplets and gather them which turn into bigger cloud droplets, that