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Cloud Science

Saudi Arabia Launches Cloud Seeding Operation To Increase Rainfall (interestingengineering.com) 36

Posted by BeauHD from the playing-god dept.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is turning to cloud-seeding to increase rainfall. Interesting Engineering reports: The country initiated the first phase of its cloud-seeding operation in areas above the capital Riyadh, al-Qassim, and Hail on Tuesday, according to Arab News. The weather modification technique is being executed as part of an effort to increase the country's yearly rainfall, which does not exceed 100 millimeters a year, by 10 to 20 percent. Cloud-seeding is a technique that involves introducing chemicals to clouds, like small particles of silver iodide, to induce more rain from a cloud. This causes water droplets to congregate around them, and the water particles clash with one another, growing larger and increasing the likelihood of rainfall.

Ayman Ghulam, head of the National Center of Meteorology and supervisor of the cloud-seeding program, said the program's operations room opened on Monday at the center's headquarters in Riyadh, and the first flights took place in the capital's vicinity, according to Gulf News. He stated that they met their objectives in terms of the results and timeliness of the seeding operations. The center will provide quarterly updates on developments. The program will track cloud formations across the country to find the optimal locations for seeding efforts, which would use "environmentally friendly" materials to increase precipitation in targeted areas. The cloud seeding initiative, according to Gluham, is one of the "promising ways" of preserving water balance in a safe, adaptable, and cost-effective manner.
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Saudi Arabia Launches Cloud Seeding Operation To Increase Rainfall More

Saudi Arabia Launches Cloud Seeding Operation To Increase Rainfall

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  • does this reduce rainfall in other areas? (Score:3)

    by molltenlol ( 9122535 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @05:32AM (#62491424)
    the cynic in me assumes that this basically amounts to 'rain theft', assuming the amount of total precipitation has a hard limit. is that accurate?

    • That depends on where the reduced rainfall happens. There are many places that get too much rainfall, especially at certain times of the year, so if this is reduced it could be seen as a benefit rather than a problem. It is of course almost impossible to predict the overall effects of this initiative, but due to the nature of weather and rainfall patterns it is more likely to work in a beneficial way for both sides of the equation.

      For example, the area where I live has proportionately less rainfall than su

      • Its a good point, but is really only a very short term, human centric point of view. Removing rain from the other side of the mountains might make people with gardens happy because they can sit outside more often, but what happens to the rest of the eco-system that relies on all that rain for its current balance? People are flexible, eco-systems less so (by which I mean, if damage happens they can't just uproot and move somewhere they prefer).

        I also don't know much about the areas around Saudi Arabia, but

        • In this case we are talking saudi arabia. If they turn nearby countries into deserts which in turn create famine, i would not be surprised if another country wages war on what it sees as a deliberate attempt to starve its citizens. It doesnt even have to be rational. It just has to stem from reduced crops and imposed rationing of water. The anger and irrational responses will feed into thst like a feedback loop.

    • Re:does this reduce rainfall in other areas? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Gavino ( 560149 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @06:33AM (#62491482)
      "Cloud-seeding is a technique that involves introducing chemicals to clouds"

      The cynic in me assumes that this will not only cause "rain theft" but also poison the land directly below seeding operations (as well as in neighboring countries), not to mention increase carbon emissions from all the additional planes flying ahead dropping their toxic chemical "seed".

      Why can't us humans just dimension the population size in different areas to match whatever the environment can comfortably support in that area, rather than breeding beyond natural limits, then undertaking these harebrained schemes in an effort to try and exceed said natural limits? Playing God with the weather will surely end in tears.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Black Parrot ( 19622 )

        "Cloud-seeding is a technique that involves introducing chemicals to clouds".

        Why not switch to chemtrails, with chemicals that make people think it's raining?

      • Re: does this reduce rainfall in other areas? (Score:4, Informative)

        by dhrabarchuk ( 1745930 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @08:03AM (#62491606)
        You do realize they seed clouds in North America too right? https://globalnews.ca/news/276... [globalnews.ca]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        The cynic in me assumes that this will not only cause "rain theft" but also poison the land directly below seeding operations (

        Not so much cynicism as paranoia. Silver is not toxic even in large quantities. And for obvious reasons, the quantities are small.

        Cloud seeding has a long history, and not a glorious one. The real problem is that it is ineffective, yet people keep trying.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Not so much cynicism as paranoia. Silver is not toxic even in large quantities. And for obvious reasons, the quantities are small.

          Silver is not generally toxic for animals that I'm aware of, but it can be highly toxic to micro-organisms of various kinds. It's possible that it could do a lot of damage to some ecosystems by killing algae, for example.

      • In the late 1990s the CIA presented a report outlining its bleak dystopian prediction that wars would be fought over water rights and access to water. How ironic that a world 2/3rds covered by water would wage war over the stuff instead of purifying water in the oceans.
        • Yeah, one issue with that CIA assessment was that there was a big push for "environmental intelligence" by the Clinton Administration and there was pressure to generate reports. Quantity was first and quality as a distant second. I would take the conclusions of any of those reports with a hefty dose of skepticism.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nasch ( 598556 )

          I wouldn't call that ironic, since purifying seawater is an energy intensive, and thus expensive, process. This is one more global problem cheap fusion power could solve. With large amounts of cheap power, clean water also becomes cheap and plentiful (though it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the brine).

      • Playing God with the weather will surely end in tears.

        On top of the countless tears shed when God plays God with the weather.

      • Well,

        no worries. Thy cynic in you is just an idiot who skipped school classes 30 years ago when "seeding" rain clouds was explained.

    • Re:does this reduce rainfall in other areas? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BeerCat ( 685972 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @07:00AM (#62491514) Homepage

      Cloud seeding has been known about for decades. It does work, but the area of effect is quite small, the amount of effect is quite small and the amount of effort to do it is quite high.

      The Soviet Union would cloud seed on the outskirts of Moscow to ensure that any rain fell before it reached the city, and hence the My Day parade through Moscow never had rain.

      However, it was deemed impracticable to do it for larger areas, or for more of the time.

      Whether the Saudis think they have overcome the scale and effort issues is another matter

      • Recently china got a lot better results. I would not assume just because an experiment in the past would be limited to that result. Are all our nuclear arsenal limited by the results of Hiroshima? Were there is a will, the potential for creating a huge crisis exists.

      • I wonder if they have better / safer chemicals for such cloud seeding nowadays, compared to when the USSR was around.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Gonoff ( 88518 )

          ...better / safer chemicals for such cloud seeding nowadays...

          The story goes that they used cement.

          I heard this after the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviets were emptying hundreds of bags of cement out of their transport aircraft at the front of the weather front that was taking all the radioactivity north. Apparently, it did the job and caused the rain to fall where the rulers felt was best - Ukraine and Byelorussia and the rest of us were not nearly as badly affected!

    • Yes. The argument will be that one is stealing water destined to fall elsewhere. Wars could be fought over this if it went unchecked.
  • They could serve as the condensate nuclei that ice would form around that would later fall as rain.

    • Too much work. They'll just use dehydrated and powdered slaves.

      • Man I just had that Ren & Stimpey skit of Powdered Toast pop in my head.

        • curious.
          saudi is between the persian gulf and red sea.
          maybe someone could build a few desalination water plants and pipe the water to where its needed.
          if environmental engineers are involved in the initial design.
          i hear the wind blows and the sun shines and heats at saudi.
          use that as the energy source.
          imagine a saudi as a world exporter of ag products and fish farm products.
          also

  • Given how the weather is a chaotic and interconnected system, I can just imagine a drunk person saying "Hold my beer" right before doing something stupid. Except, in this case, it's Saudi Arabia.
  • So, this is what we're calling chemtrails now? Cloud seeding?
  • Did they figure out how to increase the amount of water in the air, so that seeding can be effective? Provoking the clouds to dump the water out early just short-circuits the water cycle.

    • At times of the year humidty around the red sea and persian gulf are both pretty high; it would seem reasonable (to someone with no other knowledge) that percipitating out moisture on land nearby would increase evaporation rates.

      • At times of the year humidty around the red sea and persian gulf are both pretty high;

        Fuck, yeah. Having worked one summer in the Rubh' al-Khalid at 45-48 degrees (Centigrade, obviously - this is not America) and 10-20% RH, then the next summer on a marginal island of the Persian Gulf at 35degC and 80-90% RH, I can tell you the desert is much less debilitating.

        The landscapes are so low on water, that even a fairly low production of precipitation by rain seeding might be worth the effort. The Emiratis are d

  • There's a limit on how much water is *in* the air that can be precipitated, so I'd think that if they force rain in one place it won't happen in another. They're looking out for their own I reckon which is what they have to do, so I'm calling it a good idea overall. Steven in Colorado

  • Already disproven (Score:3)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @05:03PM (#62492748)
    This doesn't work. Source: Me. I'm halfway done with a paper on something that DOES work, and UAE over next door is doing something that works with their cloud ionization. But cloud seeding doesn't work because the "thing missing" is nigh always not hygroscopic particles (stuff water sticks too, and what cloud seeding aims t provide). Even the most detailed long term meta studies find it barely affects rain at most. So good job Saudi's, nice going on throwing money down that hole.

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