The GCC is banking on cloud seeding one of the solutions to climate change. But questions remain about efficacy and ethics: The UAE has started developing artificial intelligence (AI) for use in its cloud seeding program, heralding a new level of precision in tech that’s being hailed as an answer to our global water scarcity woes. By using an algorithm to cross reference historical weather data with current satellite reports and generate predictions about precipitation, scientists hope to effectively assess whether there’s enough humidity for cloud seeding operations to be successful.

SOUND SMART- What, exactly, is cloud seeding? Cloud seeding literally trying to make it rain or snow. For it to work, you need to put substances that help water molecules stick together (like silver iodide) into clouds — either by spraying it from a plan or shooting it up from earth. Programs in China and the US show precipitation can increase as much as 10-30% when it works.

In MENA — where water scarcity is an existential threat — solutions on the water security front can’t come quickly enough. MENA is projected to be one of the first regions to “effectively run out of water.” The UAE sees “sparse and inconsistent” rainfall, averaging some 140–200 mm per year, the World Bank tells us.

This isn’t the UAE’s first cloud seeding rodeo: The UAE has run a cloud seeding program for the last two decades, but efforts accelerated in 2015, when it set up a research center to support new tech developments in the field. The center has funded 11 projects, including one focused on the use of nanotechnology to develop cloud seeding materials — also intended to improve cloud seeding efficiency. The AI project was financed through a USD 1.5 mn grant this year.

Other countries in the region are following suit: Saudi Arabia launched the first phase of its cloud seeding program in April this year and the second in early August. Kuwait said in 2016 it would launch a cloud seeding program “soon.” And both Egypt and Ethiopia are mulling whether cloud seeding could work for them. Still, the UAE is “the unquestioned regional leader” in cloud seeding, the New York Times reported recently.

But cloud seeding remains a controversial practice — not least because the jury’s still out on just how effective it actually is. “The results of about 70 years of research into the effectiveness of cloud seeding are mixed,” atmospheric scientist William Cotton noted recently.

No one knows how much snow we can really get from SNOWIE: A 2020 study based on an experiment called “US SNOWIE” offered “unambiguous” evidence that cloud seeding can work when conditions int he sky are just right. The catch is that we still don’t have a great understanding of how much water we can produce from it, the study’s lead author said recently. And there are practical limitations: It’s “widely acknowledged that cloud seeding is least likely to be effective during drought conditions, as clouds don’t have moisture to release,” notes a recent article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Other unanswered questions: What’s the environmental impact of forcing clouds to rain? Cloud seeding could be linked to a number of extreme weather incidents, including severe flooding in the UK and UAE and a blizzard in China, the Bulletin article notes. Questions have also been raised about whether silver iodide — which appears to be toxic to aquatic life — may cause long-term damage to people or the environment.

In the end, silver iodide is no silver bullet: “The promise of creating rain is highly appealing in the face of increasing water shortages (pdf) and disruptions to water cycles exacerbated by climate change,” notes the Bulletin article. But experts stress it’s no catch-all, quick-fix solution — most importantly because it doesn’t solve the systemic causes of drought.