--- title: Is Cloud Seeding to Blame for Floods? What to Know description: After record rainfall—most recently in Dubai—weather modification programs have come under public scrutiny. Here’s what experts have to say. canonical: https://time.com/6967836/dubai-floods-cloud-seeding-rain-blame-climate-change/ author: Koh Ewe article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-04-17T11:45:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T17:28:29.730Z article:section: Science og:title: Is Cloud Seeding to Blame for Floods? What to Know og:description: After record rainfall—most recently in Dubai—weather modification programs have come under public scrutiny. Here’s what experts have to say. og:url: https://time.com/6967836/dubai-floods-cloud-seeding-rain-blame-climate-change/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt70c7a44cb2f83d7e/698a55b4929fad7115bfc667/Dubai-UAE-Flooding-Cloud-Seeding-Climate-Change.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: UAE-BAHRAIN-OMAN-WEATHER-FLOOD og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is Cloud Seeding to Blame for Floods? What to Know twitter:description: After record rainfall—most recently in Dubai—weather modification programs have come under public scrutiny. Here’s what experts have to say. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt70c7a44cb2f83d7e/698a55b4929fad7115bfc667/Dubai-UAE-Flooding-Cloud-Seeding-Climate-Change.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Cloud Seeding Works and Why It’s Wrongly Blamed for Floods From Dubai to California > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. 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Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Koh Ewe](https://time.com/author/koh-ewe/) ## Koh Ewe Koh Ewe (Koyu) was a reporter for TIME based in Singapore. Apr 17, 2024 11:45 AM UTC  A car is left on a flooded street following heavy rains in Dubai early on April 17, 2024. A car is left on a flooded street following heavy rains in Dubai early on April 17, 2024. Giuseppe Cacace—AFP/Getty Images by [Koh Ewe](https://time.com/author/koh-ewe/) ## Koh Ewe Koh Ewe (Koyu) was a reporter for TIME based in Singapore. Apr 17, 2024 11:45 AM UTC In a place as dry as the desert city of Dubai, whenever they can get rain, they’ll take it. United Arab Emirates authorities will often even try to make it rain—as they did earlier this week when the National Center of Meteorology dispatched planes to inject chemicals into the clouds to try to coax some showering. But this time they got much more than they wanted. Dubai faced torrential downpours on Tuesday, with flooding shutting down much of the city, including schools and its major airport—[killing](https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/4/17/dubai-reels-from-flood-chaos-as-record-rains-lash-uae#:~:text=A%2070%2Dyear%2Dold%20man,were%20killed%2C%20including%20several%20children.) at least one man whose car was swept away as well as at least 18 others in neighboring Oman, including a bus full of schoolchildren. The UAE government media office said it was the heaviest rainfall recorded in 75 years and called it “[an exceptional event](https://twitter.com/UAEmediaoffice/status/1780326720588906951).” More than a typical year’s worth of water was dumped on the country in a single day. Now, many people are pointing a finger at the “cloud seeding” operations preceding the precipitation. “Do you think the Dubai floods might have something to do with this?” popular social media account Wide Awake Media [asked on X](https://twitter.com/wideawake%5Fmedia/status/1780394170047209930), alongside a clip of a news report on the UAE’s weather modification program. But experts say that while cloud seeding may have enhanced the rainfall, pinning such a devastating downpour on it is misguided. “It is very unlikely that cloud seeding would cause a flood,” Roslyn Prinsley, the head of disaster solutions at the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, tells TIME, describing such claims as “conspiracy theories.” It’s not the first time cloud seeding has been blamed for floods—in [Dubai](https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/enough-rumours-cloud-seeding-had-nothing-to-do-with-uae-s-three-day-rain-storm-1.963753) and around the world. In February, social media users charged officials working on a cloud seeding pilot program in [California](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-24/the-latest-unfounded-conspiracy-theory-cloud-seeding-is-to-blame-for-californias-storms-and-flooding) with causing storms that hit the state, despite the technology not even being used before the storms in question. And in [Australia](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N2WH0RK/) in 2022, as the nation down under experienced record rainfall, social media users recirculated an old news clip that questioned if there was a link between cloud seeding and flooding—to which fact-checkers answered: there isn’t. Here’s what to know about cloud seeding, how and whether it even works, and what scientists say people should actually be worried about. ## How does cloud seeding work? Cloud seeding basically [works](https://www.dri.edu/making-it-snow/) by artificially recreating the process by which rain and snow naturally occur: In normal clouds, microscopic droplets of water vapor are attracted to atmospheric aerosols like dust or pollen or salt from the sea. When enough water droplets converge around these nuclei, they form ice crystals and fall. Clouds are seeded, [typically](http://www.nawmc.org/faq/) by specially equipped aircraft but also by ground-based generators, by implanting particles, commonly silver iodide, in and around selected clouds to act as nuclei and trigger the precipitation process. ## Does cloud seeding even work? Since the futuristic-sounding weather modification technique was introduced in the 1940s, it has been used regularly across the world, from the UAE to China to the United States, for a wide range of intended purposes. Mostly employed by governments grappling with drought, cloud seeding has even found itself a part of some of the biggest events in history, from [clearing urban pollution](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23397205) and ensuring blue skies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to [staving away](https://www.dw.com/en/how-to-make-it-rain-cloud-seeding-to-combat-drought/a-62914900) Moscow-bound radioactive clouds in the wake of a nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, to [hampering](https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/03/archives/rainmaking-is-used-as-weapon-by-us-cloudseeding-in-indochina-is.html) the movement of U.S. enemies during the war in Vietnam. (Weather modification in warfare has since been banned by the U.N.) For decades, a rain-scarce UAE has invested heavily in cloud seeding, including [granting](https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/government/cloud-seeding-expert-receives-permanent-residency-in-uae-1.937039) permanent residency to experts, and [funding](https://gulfnews.com/uae/weather/work-starts-on-revolutionary-new-uae-cloud-seeding-project-1.101743314) research programs to better identify the seedability of clouds. But the science on just how effective cloud seeding is remains inconclusive. In 2003, the U.S. National Research Council [concluded](https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-cloud-seeding-help-quench-the-thirst-of-the-u.s.-west) that “there still is no convincing scientific proof” of its efficacy at the time. A [landmark 2020 study](https://new.nsf.gov/news/scientists-demonstrate-cloud-seeding-can-generate), however, found that cloud seeding does work—but researchers are clear about its limitations. UAE meteorological officials [say](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/parched-uae-turns-science-squeeze-more-rainfall-clouds-2022-08-30/) that their cloud seeding operations can increase rainfall by 10-30%, while Californian authorities’ [estimates](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-24/the-latest-unfounded-conspiracy-theory-cloud-seeding-is-to-blame-for-californias-storms-and-flooding) for their own program sit at 5-10%. The Desert Research Institute (DRI), the state of Nevada’s research group, says cloud seeding can increase seasonal precipitation by about [10%](https://www.dri.edu/making-it-snow/), while the World Meteorological Organization [assessed](https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/100/8/bams-d-18-0160.1.xml) in 2019 that the impacts of cloud seeding range from next to nothing to 20%. And success in producing rain [depends significantly](https://www.watercorporation.com.au/Help-and-advice/Water-supply/Alternative-water-supply-options/Cloud-seeding) on atmospheric conditions such as wind and cloud temperatures. That’s why experts agree that cloud seeding tends to get a bad rap from the public. Its impact is often overstated, and while it can enhance rainfall, other natural and unnatural factors play a much greater role in causing floods. ## Are there any concerns about cloud seeding? A number of myths are associated with cloud seeding, such as that it causes what’s known as “chem-trails,” cloud-like streaks of white in the sky. [DRI says](https://www.dri.edu/making-it-snow/) those are actually “jet contrails, and they are the aviation equivalent of visible plumes of steamy breath on a cold morning.” They have “no connection with cloud-seeding activities.” But there are other reasons for skepticism about cloud seeding. Critics argue that seeding clouds in one region may simply deprive another of rain, as the clouds will unleash precipitation before they were meant to. (Iran has for years [accused](https://www.csis.org/analysis/irans-cloudy-accusations) its neighbors of “stealing their rain.”) Others have expressed health concerns about the chemicals used to seed clouds. Silver iodide, a common substance used, may be [toxic to animals](https://earth.org/unleashing-the-power-of-cloud-seeding-navigating-potential-and-pitfalls/#:~:text=Despite%20debates%2C%20silver%20iodide%20persists,exploration%20of%20less%20harmful%20alternatives.), though others [insist it is safe](https://www.library.nd.gov/statedocs/WaterCommission/SeedingQ&A2010Web20140214.pdf#page=4). In a publication for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Laura Kuhl, a public policy professor at Northeastern University, [argues](https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/dodging-silver-bullets-how-cloud-seeding-could-go-wrong/) that cloud seeding may do “more harm than good” due to these uncertainties and because, given its limited effectiveness, it promotes a sense of “techno-optimism” that “can obscure deeper structural drivers of vulnerability like unsustainable water use and unequal distribution of access to water.” ## What’s to blame for floods? The severity of the recent flooding in Dubai could be in large part because the perennially dry country hasn’t developed [effective drainage infrastructure](https://www.climatechangenews.com/2022/09/02/deadly-flash-floods-in-uae-highlight-need-for-resilience-investment/) to deal with intense rainfall. But experts note that a major reason for such extreme weather events is climate change, since [warmer air can hold more water](https://climate.ec.europa.eu/news-your-voice/news/how-climate-change-disrupting-rainfall-patterns-and-putting-our-health-risk-2023-08-03%5Fen#:~:text=Since%20warmer%20air%20can%20hold,economic%20burden%20on%20our%20societies.), which then leads to heavier rainfall and floods in some areas. Prinsley says that when it comes to dealing with global warming and increasingly destructive weather phenomenon, people should be more concerned about human activities that “seed” the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses than with cloud seeding. “Climate change on top of natural weather and climate processes is the cause of much of the extreme weather that we are seeing across the world. Cloud seeding is used to make recalcitrant clouds produce some rain,” she says. “The thunderstorms themselves are much more likely to have caused the extreme flooding in Dubai due to climate change-fuelled intense rainfall—as is happening across the world.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6967836/dubai-floods-cloud-seeding-rain-blame-climate-change/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6967836/dubai-floods-cloud-seeding-rain-blame-climate-change/"},"headline":"How Cloud Seeding Works and Why It’s Wrongly Blamed for Floods From Dubai to California","datePublished":"2024-04-17T11:45:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T17:28:29.730Z","description":"After record rainfall—most recently in Dubai—weather modification programs have come under public scrutiny. 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