Saudi Arabia It is a state located in one of the most extreme climates in the world, in the middle of the desert, and the country’s multimillion-dollar government launches all kinds of initiatives to fight against extreme drought.
One of these initiatives is the call ‘cloud seeding’. As stated in a report Mirrorcloud seeding aims to improve a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny ice nuclei into certain types of clouds with subzero temperatures.
This is a complicated process that essentially means that an airplane can be used to drop small particles, such as silver iodidewhich allows the vapor to condense and more easily become rain.
Countries such as the United Arab Emirates have used this technique to address water shortages and in fact, it was wrongly blamed for cause flooding in Dubai in April this yearbut experts say it is highly unlikely that cloud seeding had any effect on flooding. A more likely factor was climate change.
Saudi Arabia has been using planes and drones to seed clouds in six selected areas, including Hail, Qassim and near the capital, Riyadh. Near Hail is Nafud, a desert 290 kilometers long and 225 kilometers wide that is mostly barren except for a few grassy areas.
Ayman Al-Bar, executive director of the Regional Cloud Seeding Programme, told the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) that selective seeding can increase rainfall by up to 20%. Al-Bar said that the Kingdom hopes “improve water security.”
“Our approach is designed to improve both the quantity and quality of precipitation from specific cloud types”added Al-Bar, according to the same source.
“The initiative has now entered its fifth phase, marking a new milestone in the country’s efforts to improve water security. “Our approach is designed to improve both the quantity and quality of precipitation from certain cloud types,” he added.