More rains in UAE: How AI boosts rainfall
In an effort to increase rainfall in the region that would hopefully increase the country's water supply, the UAE has been undertaking hundreds of cloud-seeding campaigns since the beginning of 2024. The Emirates now employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve cloud seeding and aim for even greater amounts of rainfall.
Annualhower Average increases obtained through the use of new technology to target rain makers have breached 15%.
Cloud-seeding, enhanced by artificial intelligence in the words of industry experts at the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) in Abu Dhabi, optimizes the process and enables the makin of decisions which can make it more efficient and focused.
Omar Al Yazeedi, deputy director general of the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), mentioned, “Clouds do not last long so you cannot have a situation where electricity is a multiple power. With AI, the cloud manager performs manual operations, looking for optimum locations first. There is artificial intelligence that tells what to see, how clouds will look, parameters to look out for.
Analyzing real-time data with AI
Yazeedi pointed out that through AI algorithms, an enormous amount of weather data is being processed simultaneously, which makes it feasible to ascertain the timings and locations for the best chances to perform cloud seeding.
AI increases the quality of the weather prediction models thereby enhancing the understanding of cloud dynamics and thereby increasing the possibilities of successfully seeding for rainfall.
This strategy also includes the use of drones fitted with sensors and AI. Drones can be able to use the seeding materials onto the clouds with better accuracy than the traditional methods.
Using AI with the drones helps create an army of aircraft that quickly execute every operation needed to maximize the efficiency of landing the clouds with the seeding materials. You can further define the exact locations of where the operations will be done,” he further elaborated.
From 84 million cubic meters up to a staggering 419 million cubic meters of usable water have been the achievements of the cloud seeding programs in the country.
This volume represents a significant proportion of the 6.7 billion cubic meters of rain which falls in the UAE every year, while each hour of operational time in cloud seeding costs about Dh29, 000 ($8, 000).
Director of the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science and a key IAAS member, Alya Al Mazroui has stated that the International Water Management Institute’s important efforts with regard to the equitable and sustainable management of water resources in arid countries, are also receiving international attention as typified by the efforts being made in all areas of water management around the world to assist them manage countries with similar problems such as water scarcity.
The programme seeks to make advancements in science, technology, and artificial intelligence such that UAE will achieve water security. Thus, we have also been working hard to make science and technology advancements over the last decade while providing valuable assistance to the UAE’s strategic objective through innovative research and deployment of advanced technologies.
The programme gives access to NCM’s resources including data, facilities, and expertise thereby enhancing the research capabilities. Such activities advocate development of AI, drones, nanotechnology, laser technology, among others and the incorporation of such technologies in rain enhancement and weather modification techniques.
An equally exciting project has been undertaken in MBZU and it entails the use of AI to recognize actionable cloud microphysical seedability predictive models.
To add to that, more than 900 cloud-seeding missions are undertaken by UAE scientists every single year and the government invests in research and technologies.
Building of such collaborations and networks is critical as a number of the faculties also work with principal investigators to help commercialize the research outputs and scale them up.
Pilotless cloud seeding?
As the UAE progresses towards AI systems approaches, the practice of pilotless seeding is still a concept which according to experts, requires additional development in relation to its ability to interpret complex weather patterns as proficient as its human counterparts.
The progress toward pilotless seeding cannot happen correctly because of the limitations in AI which make it customary for a pilot to always be in control. To conduct static seeding, a triangle structure must be in place which consists of a pilot, a meteorologist and a cloud seeding ‘doing team’. “So, pilotless seeding is also a part of enhancing the capabilities that we have in mind while improving the research in terms of AI, drones and other technologies,” Yazeedi.
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