The Middle East , already on the edge of human habitability due to utmost heat , could becomeunlivable by mid - centurydue to rising temperature and hang water table . In an effort to isolate the region from worsening conditions , the United Arab Emirates has turned to a , uh , unique resolution : electrical charge - pip drone that could avail juice rain .
man have examine various strategies over the millennia to coax rain from the sky , and in the past century those efforts have become more advanced : We ’ve useddynamite , facile iodide , and small subatomic particle injected into clouds viaplanes or even anti - aircraft gun . But the UAE is using a technology unimaginable to the rainmaker who roved the Southern Plains during the Dust Bowl .
Footagerecently issue by the UAE weather agencyshows lumbering rainfall fall in the desert . The fat droplets fall were reportedly the solution of a pilot test of the poke . Using unmanned drones that discharge electricity may sound a little foolhardy in the thick of storm clouds , but that electrical energy could be a key ingredient in catch rain to come .
Photo: Francois Nel (Getty Images)
cloud are made up water droplet , which are too tiny to descend out of the sky ( hence , cloud exist ) . The electrical charge essentially encourage those small droplets to clash and contract into big ones that do finally get heavy enough to fall as rainwater . In a country like the UAE , however , even drop that are big enough to accrue as rainfall can often evaporate before reaching the ground owe to the very lowly humidity . The electrical charging technique could help flesh out those droplets up enough to reach the desert storey and replenish a piddle table that ’s been subside due the neighborhood ’s rapacious growth .
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The researchers at the University of Reading who are behind the system have spend timemodeling itas well as doingballoon - base testsover the past year to judge its efficacy . Earlier this year , thedrone tests begin .
The UAE is hardly the only country to sour to swarm seeding in late years . China has amajor programme to seed cloudsfrom the tallness of the Himalayas , whileSouth KoreaandThailandhave used swarm seeding to make it rain and battle pollution . Last year , Indonesia overloaded cloudswith particles to try and make it stop raining . Different climates respond differently to haze over seeding , and while its wide used , it ’s still seen as a minute of a meteorological crap game , give the involution of doing it right and limited solution .
The Middle East could habituate a little more rain . The highest yearly average rainfall total in UAE isless than 4 inches(10.2 centimeters ) . At the same time , the land has one of the highest water intake rate in the universe per person , according to the U.S. International Trade Administration . That ’s put overweight pressure on the aquifers underneath it . Governmentfiguresalso show the area desalinize 42 % of its water , though that ’s an expensive and push - intensive process . Cloud seeding — or I guess more accurately , cloud zapping — could help recharge aquifers and take some of the mental strain of desalination plants . ( Water conservation , alternatively of build lavish oases in the desert , might also be a dear strategy , but that ’s just one serviceman ’s thoughts . )
The Emirates are expect to get drier , and so that makes find H2O imagination from anywhere , including electrified clouds , a priority . But more rain will only come up to one part of the body politic ’s clime suffering . In addition to dry out out , the country is expected to stir up up dramatically . If carbon emissions continue rising unfettered , the country could warm up a shocking 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit ( 2.4 degrees Celsius ) by mid - hundred alone , according to datacollected by the World Bank . Even a world where leaders get their act together and meet the Paris Agreement finish could still be catastrophic in terms of drouth and warming . That means , in all likelihood , it ’s go to take more than fancy drone to aid the UAE .
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