The `War of the Clouds` in the Middle East... A competition for rain water and an Arab country in the fore

With the lack of rain in the Middle East and North Africa, the countries of the region have entered a race to develop the necessary technologies for "cloud seeding" in order to obtain abundant amounts of water.

And the New York Times notes in a report entitled "The War of the Clouds ... The Rise of Competing Forces in the Middle East Along a New Front" that the UAE is leading the efforts made for raindrops, while other countries are rushing to keep pace with them.

With 12 countries averaging less than 10 inches of precipitation per year, a figure that has fallen by 20 percent over the past 30 years, their governments desperately need any increase in fresh water, and many see rain as a quick way to tackle the problem.

The UAE has launched an ambitious program to implement rain seeding operations, and has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into this effort by pollinating clouds with chemicals to impose rainfall.

The official news agency (WAM) says that rain rain contributes to "raising the annual harvest of rainwater, supporting the state's water situation, increasing the rates of surface runoff in valleys, and supporting the strategic stock of groundwater."

The UAE is making efforts to increase rainwater

The UAE is considered one of the "developed countries in the Middle East in terms of readiness and progress and has extensive experience in this field, as it uses the latest capabilities available at the international level and the latest global advanced devices to support rain seeding operations, which depend on a network of advanced air radars, which monitors the atmosphere The state and monitoring the withdrawals over a 24-hour period,” according to (WAM).

The New York Times report points to other countries that are accompanying these efforts, such as Morocco, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and more than a dozen other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

But the cloud seeding effort raises fears that one country is drying up clouds at the expense of other countries' winds.

However, atmospheric scientists say the cloud's life span, especially cumulus clouds that are most likely to produce rain, is rarely more than two hours.

Sometimes, clouds can last longer, but they are rarely long enough to reach another country, even in the Gulf region, where seven countries are located close to each other.

The UAE .. the regional “leader”

The New York Times says that the UAE has long been the "indisputable regional leader" in the matter of pollinating clouds for water. The huge oil and gas sector in order to maintain its position as the financial and commercial capital of the Gulf.

The American newspaper explains that the UAE has increased the importance of water security, after increasing its population from 100,000 people in the 1960s to about 10 million in 2020, thus increasing the demand for water.

This demand is met by water purification plants, but it is very expensive compared to the rain seeding program, which countries pay great attention to, and pilots take advantage of any promising weather opportunity to get rain.

"We're available 24 hours a day... We live 30 to 40 minutes from the airport... and it takes 25 minutes to be in the air," said Mark Newman, a prominent South African pilot in the field of rain rain taking part in the Emirates programme.

The UAE will use modern technologies to pollinate clouds

But there are scientific doubts about the efficacy of cloud seeding to obtain abundant precipitation, and the main obstacle for many atmospheric scientists is the difficulty, and perhaps the impossibility, of documenting increases in precipitation.

Alan Roebuck, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University who is an expert in evaluating climate engineering strategies, said: "The problem is that once pollinated, you can't tell if it's going to rain anyway."

Another scientist notes that cumulus longus clouds in the UAE and neighboring regions can be so turbulent that it is difficult to determine whether pollination has any effect.

Also, not all clouds have the ability to produce rain, and even a cloud that seems suitable for pollination may not have enough moisture.

Another challenge in hot climates is that raindrops may evaporate before they reach the ground.

Sometimes, the effect of pollination can be greater than expected, resulting in a lot of rain or snow, or the wind can move and carry clouds away from the area where the pollination was done, increasing the possibility of "unintended consequences," according to a statement. Published by the American Meteorological Society.

Despite the difficulties in collecting data on the effectiveness of cloud seeding, Abdullah Al-Mandoos, Executive Director of the National Center of Meteorology in the UAE, said that the methods followed by the state achieve an increase of at least 5% in rainfall annually, and perhaps much more, But he acknowledged the need for data covering many more years.

Al Mandoos said that during the last weekend of the New Year, the rain seeding process coincided with a storm that dumped 5.6 inches of rain in three days, which often exceeds the average rainfall in the UAE throughout a year.

Al-Mandoos expressed his optimism, pointing to the use of a new nano-material for pollination, and said that if the UAE had more clouds to pollinate, perhaps it could receive more rain.

Quoted from: Alhurra website