Rain. It was impossible to go unnoticed — photos and videos plastered all over the national news and on the Instagram stories of most NYU Abu Dhabi’s students. For many, it made their day. For others, it was a great reason to complain. Regardless, there is a human factor to this typically natural phenomenon that is worth taking a closer look into, particularly in the context of the UAE.

In one of the most arid countries in the world, rain is a reason to celebrate. The coastal areas in the United Arab Emirates receive as little as 100 millimeters of rainfall per year, less than almost any other place on Earth. It is no surprise that some NYUAD students welcomed the first rain of the semester with open arms, happily getting soaked.

“I really missed rain, coming from a city where it rains almost every week. It was nice to just be out there in the rain after months of constant heat and sun,”said Erica Wu, Class of 2023.

Stable weather with little rain draws flocks of tourists to the UAE’s beaches and resorts. On the downside, however, it contributes to water scarcity in the country. Seawater desalination has been a primary response to this challenge, providing 42% of the total water supply. In parallel, the government has been working for more than two decades on increasing rainfall levels through cloud seeding, a technique that uses salts or silver iodide dropped from an airplane as a medium for attracting water molecules.

“[Cloud seeding] collects water droplets to make them bigger and easier to fall,” explained Sourav Taraphdar, a research scientist at the Center for Prototype Climate Modeling. According to the National Center of Meteorology, the rainfall in the UAE increased by 10 to 15 percent thanks to cloud seeding. This additional rainfall has tremendous benefits for the country's economy. While seeded water costs one cent per cubic meter, the current primary source of water, desalination, costs 60 times more.

However, literature in the sciences is divided with regards to the effectiveness of cloud seeding. A study conducted by researchers from Tel Aviv University analyzed data from 50 years of cloud seeding. The paper concluded that in the case of Israel, the increase in precipitation most likely happened by chance or due to a change in the weather patterns.

The main difficulty in evaluating the effectiveness of cloud seeding is the impossibility of randomised studies in real life: after all, no two clouds are identical.

“You want to see if it would rain or not. One way you could do it is to consistently experiment with very similar clouds. You alternate between seeding them and not seeding, and see what are the results,” explained Olivier Paulis, the principal investigator at the CPCM. “The best we can do is to have a computer model.”

Currently, many governments believe that cloud seeding is effective and continue to implement the process to not only increase the freshwater reserves, but also for other purposes. Famously, China deployed extensive cloud seeding before the Beijing 2008 Olympics to drain the clouds and ensure a clear sky for the opening ceremony. Other potential uses include suppressing hail to save crops, dissipating fog and altering hurricanes.

With mounting environmental problems around the world, the idea of meddling with the atmosphere through cloud seeding may be received by some with unease. When it comes to impact of the substances used for cloud seeding, the science is reassuring: silver iodide poses no environmental danger and other salts are already present in the Earth’s crust.

“Cloud seeding that is being done here in the UAE does not have any climate impact. They are just trying to get more water,” Paulis added.

Although cloud seeding seems to be neutral in terms of its impact on climate, it can cause political tensions. The ability for governments to alter the conditions and locations surrounding rainfall is a phenomenon that may lead to accusations of “rain stealing”, as in the case of Iranian officials blaming Israel and Europe for decreased rainfall in Iran. So far, these claims have not been treated seriously but may become a challenge if weather modification starts to be implemented on a larger scale.

Next time it rains in Abu Dhabi, it is worth taking a few minutes to understand the processes behind this extraordinary phenomenon. However, the long-term impact of this human involvement with weather patterns is yet to be understood.