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Abu Dhabi /Â WAM
The UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science is collaborating with a team of leading meteorologists to develop a potentially ground-breaking technology revolving around the ‘electrical seeding’ of clouds, a theoretical concept that studies the effect of electrical charges on rain-bearing clouds.
Alya Al Mazroui, Manager of the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science, and senior officials at the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology, NCMS, are engaged in discussions with Prof. Giles Harrison, who specialises in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading, UK, and with Keri Nicoll, a NERC Independent Research Fellow at the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading.
The team is set to examine the electrical properties of clouds through a combination of theoretical and experimental work. The team is set to examine the electrical properties of clouds through a combination of theoretical and experimental work. As a first step, they will model the growth of charged drops to raindrops to the extent that leads to thunderstorms. Secondly, they will attempt to measure and modify the charges present in clouds using balloons and aircraft.
An innovative aspect is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs, to artificially modify the electrical properties of the clouds. A promising attribute of the electrical seeding approach is that it leaves no local environmental residues, as the UAVs are electrically powered and hence pollution-free.