The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning the creation of an artificial mountain that is large enough to alter weather patterns and increase rainfall. The construction of the man-made mountain is still tentative, but plans are in motion and experts from the U.S.-based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) are currently attempting to model the height and slope that would be required for such as feat.
An artificial mountain would help increase rainfall due to its effect on winds, which would cause them to lift air possessing evaporation upward, in turn promoting cloud formation. Afterwards, these clouds could be used to increased precipitation.
"What we are looking at is basically evaluating the effects on weather through the type of mountain, how high it should be and how the slopes should be," said Roelof Bruintjes, a scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the project's lead researcher. "We will have a report of the first phase this summer as an initial step."
The project isn't anything too new for the UCAR, which, over the past decade, has been involved in a Wyoming weather project that focuses on seeding clouds over the Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre and Wind River mountain ranges in order to increase snowfall by 10 percent.
As of now, the logistics of the project are still unclear, as a mountain would need to be massive and the raw materials needed to create it would be difficult to acquire. Estimates reveal that the artificial materials needed to complete the project might be as much as one-quarter of the world's 2015 concrete output.
Although mountains can effectively promote rainfall, they can also decrease it in some regions through the rain shadow effect, meaning that certain areas will suffer from the creation of an artificial mountain. Furthermore, some experts are skeptical that such a project would have much of an impact, suggesting that it would only create a small amount of rain in a region near the mountain.
"I really doubt that it would work," said Raymond Pierrehumbert, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford. "You'd need to build a long ridge, not just a cone, otherwise the air would just go around."
"Even if you could do that, mountains cause local enhanced rain on the upslope side, but not much persistent cloud downwind, and if you need cloud seeding to get even the upslope rain, it's really unlikely to work as there is very little evidence that cloud seeding produces much rainfall," he added.
