Dubai Uses Drone Technology To Shower Rain Clouds To Combat Heat

As heat grips the United Arab Emirates, its officials are not relying much on nature and creating their own rain with the help of drones. They fly into clouds and unleash electrical charges.

The drone technology is used to form the rain. It helps to give clouds a shock to "cajole them" into clumping together. This in turn produces precipitation. It seems to be a much-needed solution as the citizens of the nation are facing temperatures that have gone above 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius).

A recently released video by the UAE's National Center of Meteorology shows rainstorm like precipitation all over the country. Cars are also seen being driven on the roads hit by rains.

According to the Center, the precipitation has been increased by using a rainmaking technique called cloud seeding. The purpose of this technique is to buildup condensation with the expectation that it may trigger precipitation, detailed Daily Mail.

Rainmaking technology is said to be commonly used in dry countries like the UAE, which usually gets four inches of rain in a year.

Linda Zou, a professor at the UAE’s Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said that the global water shortage is becoming worse in various parts of the world, so the demand for fresh water is just rising, reported New York Post. She sees cloud seeding as one of the possible methods that could contribute to alleviating the water issue.

The cloud seeding efforts of the UAE are part of an ongoing $15 million mission to produce rain in the nation. Professor Maarten Ambaum, who worked on the project, said earlier this year that the dry nation has sufficient clouds to make conditions which allow for rainfall.

Alya Al-Mazroui, head of the UAE's downpour improvement science-research program, spoke at length about the technology in March. "Furnished with a payload of electric-charge outflow instruments and altered sensors, these robots will fly at low elevations and convey an electric charge to air particles, which ought to energize precipitation," he said at that time.

Meanwhile, the UAE is reportedly looking into ways to preserve the rain that hits the ground. Dams and reservoirs are being built to collect water that flood desert valleys. The nation is said to have approximately 130 dams and levees with a storage capacity of about 120 million cubic meters.