Dubai handles the weather using drones to produce rain

Humans have tried for thousands of years Different strategies for producing rainBut these efforts have paid off in the last century It is injected into the clouds using dynamite, silver iodide and small particles Even by planes or anti-aircraft guns. But the United Arab Emirates Use technology previously unimaginable.

To control the temperature near 50 C, The UAE turned to technology to cause rain. This week, they won their race Launching drones that create electrical activity in the clouds, they sink under the rain. The idea is that electric shocks to the droplets in the clouds cause them to overheat.

Clouds are formed by small droplets that do not fall from the sky (they are stopped in the air by the flow of air). These small droplets basically trigger collisions, forming large droplets that eventually become heavy enough to fall. In the form of rain. This is a replica of a process that already exists in storm clouds in nature. The success of new technology is going viral on the internet. Several videos showing rain on the streets of Dubai have been posted on social media.

Since the UAE has a high temperature, the most natural thing is that the water droplets formed by the clouds dry up before they fall to the ground, resulting in less rainfall in the region. The electric charging technique helps to “fatten” these droplets to reach the desert soil and fill the water table. This is being offset by the turbulent growth of the region.

Gary Nicole is part of a team of scientists at the University of Reading England Their research led to artificially induced thunderstorms this week. University scientists were awarded $ 1.5 million in 2017 from the United Arab Emirates Research Program for Rain Development Science, which has invested in at least nine different research projects in the United Arab Emirates over the past five years.

What we are trying to do is make the water droplets inside the clouds big enough to fall to the surface when they fall from the cloud, ”said meteorologist and researcher Gary Nicole.

To test their research, Nicole and his team built four drones with wingspan of about six feet. Drones, launched from a catapult, can fly for about 40 minutes. During flight, drone sensors measure temperature, humidity and electrical charge inside a cloud, allowing researchers to know when and where to shoot.

Substitute for desalination

The United Arab Emirates conducted 242 cloud seeding operations in 2017According to the National Weather Service. Advanced rainfall can provide a more cost-effective and sustainable solution than procedures such as desalination that removes salt from seawater.

The United Arab Emirates is one of the largest desalination operations in the world, producing large quantities of salt water. But saltwater deposits in the oceans can be harmful to marine life.