UAE
ABU DHABI: Abullah al-Hammadi, a meteorological officer for the United Arab Emirates, looks at weather charts on computer displays as a twin-turboprop plane takes off in the blazing desert sun with dozens of salt canisters strapped to its wings.
The plane shoots salt flares into the most promising white clouds at 9,000 feet in an attempt to bring down rain.According to Hamadi, director of rain enhancement activities at the National Centre for Meteorology in the UAE, “cloud seeding requires the availability of rainy clouds, and this is an issue as it is not always the case.”
The UAE has relied on expensive desalination plants that use seawater because of the effects of climate change, a growing population, and an economy that is diversifying into tourism and other sectors.
