Scientists claim to have achieved a breakthrough by generating a series of downpours in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates using a new technology which is designed to control the weather.
A team, employed by the ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has created some 50 rainstorms last year in the emirate’s eastern Al Ain region — most of the storms were at the height of the summer in July and August, the Daily Mail reported.
And, people living in Abu Dhabi were baffled by the rainfall which sometimes turned into hail and included gales and lightening.
The scientists have been using giant ionisers, shaped like stripped down lampshades on steel poles, to generate fields of negatively charged particles. These promote cloud formation and researchers hoped they could then produce rain.
In a confidential company video, Helmut Fluhrer, the founder of the Swiss company in charge of the project, Metro Systems International, which was monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany, boasted of success.
“We have achieved a number of rainfalls,” Fluhrer was quoted as telling The Times .
It is believed to be the first time the system has produced rain from clear skies. In the past, China and other countries have used chemicals for cloud-seeding to both induce and prevent rain falling.
Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters that can send trillions of cloud-forming ions into the atmosphere. Over four summer months the emitters were switched on when the required atmospheric level of humidity reached 30 per cent or more.
While the country’s weather experts predicted no clouds or rain in Al Ain region, rain fell on 52 occasions.
Professor Hartmut Grassl of Max Planck Institute for Meteorology said: "There are many applications. One is getting water into a dry area. May be this is a most important point for mankind."
However, some scientists are treating the results in Al Ain with caution because Abu Dhabi is a coastal state
and can experience natural summer rainfall triggered by air picking up moisture from warm ocean before dropping on land.
But the number of times it rained in the region so soon after the ionisers were switched on has encouraged
researchers.
Prof. Peter Wilderer, Director of advanced studies on sustainability at the Technical University of Munich, witnessed the experiments first hand and is backing the breakthrough. He said: “We came a big step closer to the point where we can increase the availability of fresh water to all in times of dramatic global changes.”
