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Cloud Science

Drones Are Zapping Clouds With Electricity To Create Rain In UAE Project (usatoday.com) 45

Posted by BeauHD from the quest-to-ensure-water-security dept.
turp182 shares a report from USA Today: [T]he UAE is now testing a new method that has drones fly into clouds to give them an electric shock to trigger rain production [...]. The project is getting renewed interest after the UAE's National Center of Meteorology recently published a series of videos on Instagram of heavy rain in parts of the country. Water gushed past trees, and cars drove on rain-soaked roads. The videos were accompanied by radar images of clouds tagged "#cloudseeding." The Independent reports recent rain is part of the drone cloud seeding project.

The UAE oversaw more than 200 cloud seeding operations in the first half of 2020, successfully creating excess rainfall, the National News reported. There have been successes in the U.S., as well as China, India, and Thailand. Long-term cloud seeding in the mountains of Nevada have increased snowpack by 10% or more each year, according to research published by the American Meteorological Society. A 10-year cloud seeding experiment in Wyoming resulted in 5-10% increases in snowpack, according to the State of Wyoming. According to a researcher that worked on the drone initiative, "the aim of the UAE's project is to change the balance of electrical charge on the cloud droplets, causing water droplets to clump together and fall as rain when they are big enough."
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Drones Are Zapping Clouds With Electricity To Create Rain In UAE Project More

Drones Are Zapping Clouds With Electricity To Create Rain In UAE Project

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  • Not a study to be found. But looking into the idea, ionizing water droplets in clouds and hoping they attract each other to form rain (rain is just a droplet getting too heavy and falling) isn't necessarily batty. You still need clouds to do it in of course. Hopefully some sort of, you know, actual data will appear eventually.

    • Re: Interesting...? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @03:13AM (#61606769)
      I just wonder where the clouds would have rained on eventually and whether this creates more rain overall or just shifts the desert downwind.

      • If downwind is the ocean, no problem. If it's (commonly) a mountain range where few people live, then small problem.

        • Re: Interesting...? (Score:4, Informative)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @04:04AM (#61606863)

          If downwind is the ocean, no problem. If it's (commonly) a mountain range where few people live, then small problem.

          The winds in the UAE blow from the NW, which is the Persian Gulf. Especially during the summer, these winds contain a high amount of humidity, so getting some rain out of them may be plausible.

          The area downwind most like to be deprived of water is the Al Hajar Mountains [wikipedia.org] of northeast Oman.

          • Mountains typically release their snowpack in the spring and summer, sustaining the lands with groundwater and rivers. Removing water from them will not be a long term small problem. This is currently the issue in the Southwestern United States where the low snowpack on the Rockies is starving the Colorado River. The 30,000,000 who fight over its water may also have something to do with it.
            • Nestle would like to remind you that you have no basic human right to the water they own throughout the the world.

  • There's only so much (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @05:08AM (#61606929)
    If you make it rain in one place, another place isn't getting rain.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by gosso920 ( 6330142 )
      The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains.

    • Its all about money in the arabian peninsula and I'm-all-right-jack and everyone else can go f*ck themselves.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        When did they become Americans?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cyba ( 25058 )

      Which would be the desired effect in some cases.

    • For thunderclouds to develop, you need water and heat. Would it be possible to heat up the clouds over the Gulf to make them grow larger, so they carry more rain into the land?

    • i was wondering about this, especially with the list of other countries (US included) that are doing this and reporting success.

      Anyway, climate change is expected to increase water vapor in the air, and the vapor is itself a greenhouse gas.

      So creating rain may to some degree mitigate higher water vapor. Or at least there is enough to go around for such activities.

      Until we get much higher levels of control that is.

    • That's somebody else's problem... ;)

    • While true,

      1) Most rain falls in the oceans and rainfall isn’t particularly deterministic, so this isn’t a zero-sum game where making it rain on your country necessarily means less rain for specific other country. It means less rain elsewhere overall, but not anywhere else in particular.

      2) Any problem of this sort is already FAR more true of existing aquatic resources such as lakes and rivers, which follow set paths. Removing water from them has consequent effects on everyone downstream. Which i

    • Looking at the wind currents in the region, it seems that the place not getting this rain is already a desert. You could probably do this in California because the Pacific winds don't carry the moisture over the Rockies anyhow. If you have tall enough mountains, the windward side gets rain and the leeward side gets dry.

  • Work on this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sajavete ( 5054387 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @05:09AM (#61606937)
    ... began in 1880: https://www.sciencephoto.com/m... [sciencephoto.com]
  • At least that's what they should call it.

    NO MAN LEFT BEHIND!

  • The Independent reported no such thing. (Score:5, Informative)

    by denzacar ( 181829 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @08:21AM (#61607221) Journal

    The Independent reports recent rain is part of the drone cloud seeding project.

    The Independent reported no such thing. In fact, it reports that electrical charging of clouds with drones is yet to be attempted.
    Clouds were seeded [wikipedia.org] with "chemicals such as silver iodide", dispersed from airplanes.

    The cloud seeding operations work through manned aircraft firing chemicals such as silver iodide into the clouds in order to cause increased precipitation.
    The National reported the heavy rainfall caused waterfalls to appear in the city of Al Ain and made driving conditions hazardous.
    In an effort to curb the country's sinking water table, the UAE invested $15 million in nine different rain-making projects in 2017.
    One system set to be trialled in the UAE uses drones to shoot electrical charge into the clouds to increase precipitation.

    As for the science... it seems to be at best a rather theoretical concept.
    https://royalsocietypublishing... [royalsocie...ishing.org]

    And a rather more cautious one, with the addition of further authors to the later studies.
    https://journals.aps.org/prl/a... [aps.org]
    https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/... [harvard.edu]
    https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/... [harvard.edu]

  • From the place it normally would have fallen
  • I learned the dangers of stealing rain in your own country from one piece

  • Perhaps a stupid question, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hmmmmmm ( 6216892 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @09:02AM (#61607319)

    In light of all the massive rainfalls, etc. as of late. Can you seed heavy rain clouds or even hurricanes before they come on coast, therefore dumping most of the water at sea, rather then flooding areas?

    • It's a good question. The idea was tried but it didn't work. This article [scientificamerican.com] has a good overview of the history and science of cloud seeding.

      In 1947, Project Cirrus--a collaboration between GE and the U.S. military--made history as scientists' first attempt to modify a hurricane. On Oct. 13, the operation dumped nearly 200 pounds of dry ice into a cyclone that was churning off the coast of Florida.

      In the 1960s and early 1970s, the federal government continued to experiment with the idea of cloud seeding hurricanes--but to little avail. Scientists eventually concluded that it wasn't effective.

  • Weather Modification What could possibly go wrong?
  • ...to annoy neighbours with rain falling only on their backyard!
  • Well, UAE is a very rich country, so for me as a small business owner this is no more than some entertaining news about how much drones they put into the air and broadcasted live on Instagram. In my case I need to buy Instagram likes here [buzzoid.com] as otherwise nobody will ever even notice me there. Maybe my content is not worse, but who cares? So these likes help me to grow and gain natural followers at least.

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