What do you do if you live in the middle of the desert and need water? You make it rain.
Scientists in Dubai can now literally modify their weather. This technology could change the
world as we know it. But will controlling the weather be used for good or for evil?
In July of 2021, the United Arab Emirates National Center of Meteorology released
a video showing a rainstorm that had been created using weather modifying technology.
How did they make it rain in the desert you may ask?
Scientists in Dubai used high-powered lasers and other advanced technology
that were mounted to the drones to make the rain fall from the desert sky.
It should come as no surprise that one of the world’s wealthiest cities would
need a lot of resources. And the fact that Dubai resides in the desert with no source
of freshwater nearby means that H2O is a hot commodity—both literally and figuratively.
The city of 3.4 million residents receives around 15 million tourists, but only about 4 inches of
rainfall, each year. In order to support its own population and the booming tourism industry,
Dubai needs to import a lot of goods. This is especially true for food and water.
Being in the desert with very little rainfall isn’t just a problem for obtaining water,
but without the vital resource, crops are hard to grow as well.
So, how does Dubai plan to overcome this problem? By making their own rain using drones.
The weather isn’t very kind in Dubai as the sandstorms can reach speeds of 62 miles per hour.
This means tiny grains of sand are whipped against buildings and anyone stuck outside at the speed
of a car driving on the highway. Also, since the land the city sits on is not solid rock,
the engineers of Dubai have had to come up with some unique solutions to construction problems.
In fact, the skyscrapers in the city are held up more by friction
than by traditional methods of building into bedrock.
They have even terraformed the region by building a palm tree-shaped island
that is covered with luxury homes and resorts. To construct the island the United Arab Emirates
dredged up enough sand from the seafloor to encircle the Earth three times.
But regardless of how much terraforming or engineering is done in Dubai,
water scarcity is the biggest problem of all. Yet, scientists have found a way to manifest
clouds and rain using artificial means. Is this safe? We’ll let you be the judge.
In 2017 researchers at the University of Reading were awarded $1.5 million
to fund their "Rain Enhancement Science." But that is nothing compared to the $15 million that the
United Arab Emirates has invested in what they’ve called their "quest to ensure water security."
The University of Reading project to create more rain in Dubai used a mix of science,
climate research, and drones. Rain is caused by the water vapor in clouds
condensing and forming droplets that are large enough to fall to the ground.
The scientists in Dubai are causing this process to happen artificially.
The premise behind their experiment is that if they can bombard an already existing cloud
with electricity to cause the tiny water droplets to attract one another, they can make it rain.
This is what happened in the video posted by the United Arab Emirates National Center
of Meteorology. To be fair, it was a short burst of rain, but by zapping the clouds
with electricity from drones scientists took the first steps towards bringing rain to the desert.
However, to truly control the weather and provide enough rain to ensure Dubai has water
security, there are a few problems that scientists still need to overcome.
For instance, using drones to zap rain out of the clouds seems to work great,
unless there are no clouds in the sky. And since Dubai is rarely cloudy, this is a problem.
But scientists have found a solution to this problem as well.
If they can make their own clouds, then that is another part of the weather they can control.
The crazy thing is researchers have found a way to do just this.
However, the consequences it could have may be life-threatening.
One simple, but extremely expensive way for Dubai to generate its own clouds
is by building a humungous artificial mountain outside of the city.
This construction project would most likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take
years to build. But in the end, the mountain could cause clouds to form.
The way mountains influence rainfall is that when air is blown towards it the
mountain forces the air molecules to ascend to higher altitudes. When the air rises it
cools and its volume decreases. This causes an increase in humidity and rain clouds to form.
It is this natural phenomenon that has caused researchers in Dubai to
toss around the idea of building a mountain to produce more clouds.
Another more sophisticated approach that the United Arab Emirates is looking into is a process
called cloud seeding. This is when scientists use salt crystals coated with titanium dioxide
to make clouds. Let’s be clear, there is something nerve-wracking about the idea
of putting titanium nanoparticles into the air we breathe. In fact,
the World Health Organization has warned that inhaling titanium may lead to carcinogenic
problems. This is a complex way of saying that breathing in the particles could lead to cancer.
This would be a steep price to pay just to create some clouds in the sky. Cloud seeding has been
condemned by many scientists as there is no way to control the process or contain it. Once the
titanium particles are in the air, they will be carried by the Earth’s winds wherever they blow.
Also, if cloud seeding works the way it’s supposed to and doesn’t cause any harm to the human body
it could lead to some other problems. The clouds that are made will not remain in one spot.
This means that as the cloud drifts with the winds they will bring the
moisture contained within them wherever they go.
Once out of the desert, the artificial clouds may cause flooding in other regions of the world.
So, what Dubai does with cloud seeding would not just affect the United Arab Emirates,
but its neighbors as well. And when other people are affected by the actions of a foreign nation,
all sorts of political problems can arise. Which brings us to another
problem with controlling the weather, the technology may not only be used for good.
In the future, if countries can control the amount of clouds and rain that are present in an area,
they could use the technology to create flash floods on enemy targets. Or just by creating
clouds in the sky, a military force could cover their approach by air. This obviously isn’t what
the technology to create rain and clouds is being developed for, but there is nothing
to stop it from being used for alternative purposes if it falls into the wrong hands.
And this is where just having the technology to alter the weather could be a problem.
Water is a vital resource, and having access to water has been the catalyst for many conflicts.
If one country can produce its own rain, its neighbor may want access to that technology.
This hopefully can be resolved diplomatically, but as history has
shown when it comes to access to resources, diplomacy isn’t always the path taken.
There is one specific instance where a war for water may ignite
due to the technology that Dubai is using.
If all of a sudden Dubai is swimming in freshwater falling from the skies,
their neighbors may conclude that it is being stolen from them. The crazy thing
is there may be some truth to this. If Dubai starts using more drones to zap every cloud
that makes its way over the city, that precipitation will not reach its final
destination. Dubai would literally be changing the weather patterns in their part of the world.
For example, as the clouds pass over Dubai and head into the gulf waters they pick up moisture.
This can then be carried to other countries in the region as a result of natural weather patterns.
However, if the weather patterns that have been occurring for millennia are
suddenly disrupted by premature rainfall due to Dubai’s new rain-making technology,
the impacts on the surrounding areas could be devastating.
We cannot predict all of the consequences of a country zapping their clouds with
electricity to create rain, or what would happen to artificially made clouds that
drift across the planet. But it is not out of the realm of possibility that as
countries and peoples are starved of the water they so desperately need,
they will look for the cause of their problems. In this case, Dubai may be to blame. This could
lead to conflict over access to resources, which could eventually lead to an all-out war.
The United Nations has had a ban on “hostile use of environmental modification techniques”
for over 40 years. In an extreme scenario, Dubai may be breaking this agreement if it is found
that by controlling their own weather they are harming other people in the surrounding regions.
The idea behind the current UN ban is to stop conflict before it happens,
but they most likely did not plan on having to address a country creating
its own clouds and rain when the ban was first introduced.
It is unlikely that Dubai, or any country, that could control the weather would use the
technology to intentionally hurt a neighbor. But the inadvertent side effects of weather
modification could definitely lead to conflict in the future. Then again,
maybe this technology will only be used for good and to make the world a better place.
In the future, an international organization could be set up to deploy drones and weather
modification technology to areas of the world that need it most. Communities who are threatened by
drought may be able to receive relief in the form of artificial clouds and rain. Or perhaps in areas
where wildfires are raging, rain could be produced to help firefighters get the blaze under control.
The future of weather modification is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
But the United Arab Emirates is not the only country that is investing in this technology.
Cloud seeding is already being experimented with in the United States.
In the Upper Colorado River Basin, several companies such as Weather Modification
Inc. are using silver iodide to produce more rain and snow in the region.
This could be used for recreational purposes or to supply more water to crops and livestock.
Weather control technology is here and the world as a whole will need to keep
an eye on it. We need to make sure it is equitable for everyone and that the
side effects of weather modification are not harmful to the planet itself.
But in the future, droughts and water scarcity may be a thing of the past.
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