The Daily Mail reports that scientists claim to have successfully modified the weather over Abu Dhabi to produce rain.
Fifty rainstorms were created last year in the state's eastern Al Ain region using technology designed to control the weather.
Most of the storms were at the height of the summer in July and August when there is no rain at all.
People living in Abu Dhabi were baffled by the rainfall which sometimes turned into hail and included gales and lightening.
The scientists have been working secretly for United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
. . .
In a confidential company video, the founder of the Swiss company in charge of the project, Metro Systems International, boasted of success.
. . .
The Metro System scientists used ionisers to produce negatively charged particles called electrons.
They have a natural tendency to attach to tiny specks of dust which are ever-present in the atmosphere in the desert-regions.
These are then carried up from the emitters by convection - upward currents of air generated by the heat release from sunlight as it hits the ground.
Once the dust particles reach the right height for cloud formation, the charges will attract water molecules floating in the air which then start to condense around them.
If there is sufficient moisture in the air, it induces billions of droplets to form which finally means cloud and rain.
. . .
Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters which 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 the Al Ain region, rain fell on FIFTY-TWO occasions.
There's more at the link.
This raises two very serious questions. First, what effect will such weather modifications have on surrounding nations? If the moisture in the atmosphere would normally have drifted with air currents to another place, and there formed part of that area's normal rainfall pattern, what will happen to that pattern if the moisture is induced to fall as rain before it gets there? By overcoming its own drought, one nation may induce drought conditions elsewhere.
This, in turn, raises the question of weather warfare. Technically, this is banned through the United Nations Environmental Modification Convention of the late 1970's . . . but back then, there were no really effective weather modification techniques available. If those techniques have become more effective - which, judging from the Daily Mail report, they have - surely the temptation for some nation to use them against another will become well-nigh irresistible? And if such techniques use ions, which are, by definition, biodegradable, disappearing without trace after use, what evidence will there be to convict the guilty party?
Thoughts to ponder . . .
Peter
You'd have to have a heck of a lot of these devices working to take enough moisture out of the environment that you impact the weather at a distant place enough to cause a drought.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm pretty sure that the acres and acres of ionizers would be easy to see, as well as the abnormal amount of rainfall downwind from them would be good evidence if someone wanted to go looking for the cause of a disruption.
We should start to build these in the central valley of california. Make our own rain and water when the fed and others stop our pumps to kill our land here. then each farmer can make sure his land is watered when it needs it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what an electric bill this will cause.