Is cloud seeding the new way to tackle water issues for UAE?

By Nilanjan Dey

With concerns about climate change and the rising demand for water in UAE, authorities and experts have taken up ‘Cloud Seeding’ to generate more water for UAE.

But what is Cloud Seeding?

Clouds are usually made up of minuscule water droplets and ice crystals which are formed when water vapours cool down in the atmosphere and condense around microscopic dust or salt particle floating in the atmosphere. Raindrops or snowflakes cannot form and precipitation will not happen without these substances, often known as condensation or ice nuclei.

Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification technique that works by inserting microscopic ice nuclei into specific kinds of subfreezing clouds. These nuclei act as a foundation for the growth of snowflakes. Following cloud seeding, the freshly created snowflakes quickly develop and descend from the clouds back to the Earth’s surface, boosting the snowpack and streamflow.

Cloud seeding viable options for UAE?

For a long time, UAE has relied heavily on pricey desalination plants that use seawater as the nation is witnessing a growing population, and an economy that is expanding into tourism and other sectors.

However, officials assert that cloud seeding can be beneficial. Hygroscopic, or water-attracting, salt flares are fired into the clouds by Abu Dhabi scientists along with salt nanoparticles, a more recent technology, in an effort to encourage and speed up the condensation process and, ideally, produce droplets large enough to fall as rain.

Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran have announced similar plans as they face droughts.

According to officials, Cloud seeding raises the rainfall rates by approximately 10% to 30% per year and costs much less than the desalination process.

Some Challenges that are being faced

“Cloud seeding requires the existence of rainy clouds, and this is a problem as it is not always the case,” said Abullah al-Hammadi, head of rain enhancement operations in the UAE’s National Centre for Meteorology.

Major difficulties can be for the pilots who go up in the sky actually to disperse the nuclei in the clouds. At the touch of a button, the pilots stationed at the al-Ain airport in the United Arab Emirates must be prepared to take off and fly over the reddish-yellow desert before guiding their plane into the clouds displayed on the meteorologists’ screens.

“Cloud seeding is considered the second hardest challenge for pilots,” said Ahmed al-Jaberi, one of the flyers doing cloud seeding.

He added, “When there is a cloud, we try to figure out the way we need to go in and out of it and avoid thunderstorms or hail”.