Should we try to control the weather?

Polls

2nd June 2021

COULD hot countries control the weather to make it rain?

That’s the question being asked by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where a harsh climate means only around 10cm of rain falls in a year, mainly in winter.

The UAE is one of the hottest countries on the planet – with daily summer temperatures over 40oC – and it needs more fresh water. It is now experimenting with using catapults to launch drones into clouds. The job of the drones is to zap droplets in the clouds with an electric charge to try to make it rain.

A team of scientists from the UK’s University of Reading came up with the idea in 2017. Dr Keri Nicoll, one of the key scientists, said they found that when cloud droplets were zapped with an electrical charge, the smaller droplets were more likely to join together and grow to become big raindrops.

The size of the raindrops is important, says Dr Nicoll, because in places like the UAE, which has high clouds and high temperatures, droplets often evaporate as they fall.

“What we are trying to do is to make the droplets inside the clouds big enough so that when they fall out of the cloud, they survive down to the surface,” says Nicoll. To test out the theory, Nicoll and her team joined up with the University of Bath to build four 2m-wide aircraft with charge emitters to zap the clouds.

They carried out early testing in the UK and Finland but now the experiment is being completed in Dubai. As climate change causes the planet to heat up, causing droughts in some places and floods in others, there is a growing interest in how to control the weather.

The WWF charity says two-thirds of the world’s people could face water shortages by 2025. Other countries like China and America are also funding science projects to see if they can change the weather.

However, there are questions over whether increasing rain in one place might take precious water away from somewhere else.

What do you think?

Should we try to control the weather?

35 Comments

Leave a Reply

abhi01 · 3 years ago

Cloud seeding involves using aircraft or drones to add small particles of silver iodide, which have a structure similar to ice, to clouds. Water droplets cluster around the particles, modifying the structure of the clouds and increasing the chance of precipitation.

abhi01 · 3 years ago

First to comment too🥇!

abhi01 · 3 years ago

Meaning yes.

gummystar5 · 3 years ago

I think that this could have negative effects. Where would the water come from? We’ve all seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. By “solving” one problem we could be starting another.

abhi01 · 3 years ago

But it may cause to much and result in you being diagnosed skin diseases

monkey61 · 3 years ago

We should control how much it rains because people need water to survive!

scarlet10 · 3 years ago

defiantly not the environment people

trixx · 3 years ago

That’s like playing God and there could be some many effects we don’t know about yet.

kittymoi · 3 years ago

no we should not control
it might make the enviroment bad .
in hotter contries there are no plants

poodles · 3 years ago

Let nature take its course...

aliboi10 · 3 years ago

I think that it is bad for the planet because you don't just go putting electrons into the atmosphere, because Earth was created naturally so we should leave it like that.

tiger.star · 3 years ago

I don't think we should try to control the weather to help humans cope with climate change, I think we should instead stop climate change and not interfere with our planet anymore then we all ready have. We've got to fix climate change and not cover it up with something that isn't natural.

cr1cket1 · 3 years ago

Yes it would be cool but you could control it to be sunny but some people might want it rainy. For example, you might want it sunny because your playing a football match but other might want it rainy so they play in the rain. So for that reason I said NO

ellabeegee · 3 years ago

I think that any new change could has negative effects but you won’t know until you try it and I think this should happen because lots of people could benefit from it. However, this could change the climate which could change animals’ natural habitats and make it harder for some to survive.

jesscub · 3 years ago

I don't think we should try and control the weather because then I think we'll just think " Oh, we can control the weather now so who cares about global warming?" Also, I think weather shouldn't be messed with because lots of things could go wrong and it could be very dangerous. But that's just what I think and I could be wrong.

ihorsman · 3 years ago

first one to coment ya

ihorsman · 3 years ago

no it is a bad idea it can make climate change change in a bad way so dont do it

ginny09876 · 3 years ago

We shouldn’t try and control BIG things like the weather. It could have terrible effects. It could help people but I think it would be safer to just leave weather alone.

ginny09876 · 3 years ago

#first to comment

loldoll20 · 3 years ago

Controlling the weather is good! It means we can make rain in countries where there are droughts. It also means we can tackle some of the effects of global warming! 😄

superpug27 · 3 years ago

Nature has thrives for billions of years, why should we change it now? Believe me, Mother Nature knows what she’s doing . I think it’s better to put trust in that then a bunch of drones, but good idea otherwise.

ansha007 · 3 years ago

we don't know if controlling the weather would have side effects, so I don't know what to chose.

jedorjok21 · 3 years ago

That is the worst idea. 1, where is the water gonna come from? 2. How would we get the source into the clouds and move the clouds!

katkid10 · 3 years ago

gummystar5 - FROM THE CLOUDS! this is kinda hard seeing all of the comments, but I think yes.

theo_gym · 3 years ago

Mother Nature knows what it's doing.

lewism · 3 years ago

I don’t think that we should because if we mess with it too much with ROBOTS and DRONES we will become to advanced. A hacker can control the weather if he penetrates the security maybe. And if there’s an error then then we might make the weather worse. Although I do agree as if it works it can give people who don’t get enough rain get more rain.

tokyogoul · 3 years ago

I totally agree from starting one problem there would almost definitely be another to follow
gummystar5 · 1 month ago

I think that this could have negative effects. Where would the water come from? We’ve all seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. By “solving” one problem we could be starting another.

piggy9876 · 3 years ago

No. Nature can help the problems.

hami · 3 years ago

Yes, because making it rain is better than hundreds of people dying of dehydration, even if it does make some small things worse because it can stop a major issue in the world.

loldoll20 · 3 years ago

IK this is a bit far fetched but we might accidentally create a super storm that could destroy everything. I would, however, like to control hurricanes so they don’t do too much damage. 🌪🌈⚡️🌧🌦⛈🌩🌨☁️🌥🌤☀️💧🌫💨

mothstar · 3 years ago

we just need to stop pumping so much CO2 into the air

phoebeh · 3 years ago

If we controlled the weather, a few downsides will occur but this is one of the most important:
Animals / nature that inhabits that area will not survive, they are used to the desert climate

So I think it's definitely not a good idea, let nature alone

mwhitty · 3 years ago

Let nature do it’s thing!

emi1234567 · 2 years ago

The weather can control itself and I think it would just mess up climate change even more

lottielou · 2 years ago

We are damaging the environement. This may damage it more.