The UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science is an international research initiative launched by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs and overseen by the National Meteorological Center. At a ceremony held on January 13 at Expo 2020 in Dubai, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, the winners of the fourth edition of the program were revealed. The winners will receive a 3-year grant for their innovative proposal in the field of rain improvement.

The United Arab Emirates is an arid country: the level of precipitation is very low, the rate of evaporation of surface water is high and the rate of groundwater recharge is much lower than the total annual water used in the country. Water security is therefore a major challenge for this country, which launched a research program for rainfall enhancement science 4 years ago, an initiative aimed at improving water security in arid and semi-arid areas around the world.

Rain Enhancement

Rain enhancement is a little-known science to the general public, yet it has been around since the late 1940s and is a promising field of research. Artificial rainfall obtained by cloud seeding, a technique first used in 1946 in the United States and subsequently adopted by farmers and wine growers around the world, could be the solution to water shortages in arid and semi-arid countries. The United Arab Emirates cloud seeding program began in the 1990s. By early 2001, the program was cooperating with well-known organizations such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, USA, as well as the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the U.S. space agency, NASA. The UAE now has over 60 networked weather stations in the UAE, a network of weather radars, and six aircraft for cloud seeding operations that use no harmful products (only natural salts). The rain enhancement operations have focused on the mountainous areas in the northeast of the country, where cumulus clouds gather in the summer. However, this technique still needs to be improved and to overcome the obstacles, the UAE has launched the Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science.

The winners of the fourth edition

The winners are :

Dr. Bradley Baker, Principal Investigator at SPEC Inc, who received the grant for his research proposal under the theme “Enhancing Rainfall in the UAE via hygroscopic seeding with nano seeding material”. Dr. Baker’s project aims to determine if the effects of the nanomaterial seeding agent and electric charge generators will stimulate a secondary ice process that could potentially lead to rain enhancement. The work integrates sophisticated numerical simulations of cumulus clouds with measurements using the SPEC Incorporated Learjet research aircraft in cooperation with the National Weather Center’s King Air cloud seeding aircraft.

Dr. Luca Delle Monache, Deputy Director at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego for his research under the theme “A Hybrid Machine Learning Framework for Improved Nowcasting of Precipitation.” The project presented by Dr. Delle Monache aims to create a test bed for AI research and operations in the UAE, as well as a new AI framework to combine satellite observations, ground-based weather radar data, rain gauges, and numerical weather prediction estimates. These elements will extract features and design products to determine the optimal time and location for cloud seeding. They will generate a more accurate quantitative estimate of precipitation to evaluate the precipitation enhancement program.

His Excellency Dr. Abdulla Al Mandous, Director General of the National Meteorological Center and President of WMO Regional Association II (Asia), said:

“The program was launched to ensure global water security through innovation in rainfall enhancement research. We are confident that the winning proposals, together with the previously awarded projects, will provide a solid scientific basis for developing promising solutions to the challenges of water stress.

For her part, Alya Al Mazroui, director of the UAE Research Program for Rainfall Enhancement Science, stressed:

“With the fourth cycle underway, we are proud of the achievements of the program since its inception. The new awardees will contribute to the development of rainfall enhancement research by working closely with the awardees from previous cycles and covering new aspects of research such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

Translated from Le programme de recherche des Emirats Arabes Unis pour la science de l’amélioration de la pluie présente les lauréats de la 4ème édition