In the hyper - arid comeuppance of the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) , water is scarce but fair weather is bountiful . The oil - rich nationcurrently usesa humble ground forces of cloud - seed drones and aircraft to ease their water woes , but scientist have late propose another way to promote precipitation in the region : mammoth solar farms .

In a young study , researchers at the University of Hohenheim in Germany show that immense regalia of solar panels have the potential to foster rainclouds above the UAE and take much - need water to ten-spot of one thousand of masses .

The system of logic behind the idea goes like this : dark - discolor solar photovoltaic panels absorb heat and , if large enough in scale , can create " artificial heating plant islands " in local surface area . With the avail of the UAE ’s ocean piece of cake , the heat could be drifted up via convection and promotecloud establishment in the skies .

Using computer modeling , the team scat several simulations to see how big the solar farm would ask to be to have the desired core .

The clay sculpture suggested a 10 - kilometer square toes ( 3.8 straight miles ) playing area of blackened solar panel would have “ very little impact ” on rain . Upwards of this though , gravid solar farmscould potentially produce solid deluge .

A 20 - square - kilometer ( 7.7 square miles ) solar control panel field would create around 570,000 cubic cadence each sidereal day of rain . If this occurred for just 10 Day in a year , it could provide enough water for over 31,000 citizenry annually .

As for a 50 - square - klick ( 19 square miles ) solar field , this would create enough rainfall to provide 125,000 extra multitude   with water each year .

“ Some solar farm are getting up to the correct size mightily now . perchance it ’s not science fiction that we can produce this effect , " Oliver Branch , lead cogitation author and mood scientist at the University of Hohenheim , toldScience .

It ’s an highly originative solution , but it might not work for every area of the globe that ’s facing water stress . Anotherstudy in 2020investigated a similar idea for the Sahara Desert in Africa . Although it would increase rainfall in the local surface area , it would have a profound bang - on effect across the globe , causing droughts and forest degradation in the Amazon , as well as temperature increment and sea - ice loss in the Arctic .

This latest proposition is effectively a form ofgeoengineering , the measured manipulation of Earth ’s natural processes to pluck its mood and weather conditions . Many believe this kind of meddlingcould be a executable solutionto the major planet ’s climate crisis – but it ’s a speculative stage business .

As the 2020 Sahara field of study show , interfere with complex systems , such as Earth ’s clime , can easilyhave unlooked-for consequencesand disastrous ripple effects . This latest study about the UAE did n’t identify any such impact beyond the surrounding region , although it ’s sure enough something scientists need to keep an center on in future inquiry .

The novel study is publish in the journalEarth System Dynamics .