Meteorologist warns of future 'weather wars' using cloud seeding after torrential rain in Dubai

If you haven't seen the torrential rain flooding Dubai in the UAE, well, the country has experienced extreme flooding after the gigantic downpour on Monday. The downpour disrupted everything in Dubai, closing schools and flooding homes and businesses.

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A meteorologist has warned that potential future "weather wars" will happen between countries if cloud seeding technology gets "out of hand". There have been theories of how the torrential rain in Dubai occurred -- possibly by cloud seeding or chemtrails, geoengineering technology to make it rain -- something that sees chemicals injected into clouds, sparking precipitation (rain).

This kind of technology has been around for close to 100 years, with one of the notable uses of it in the last few years being China spending millions of dollars to control the weather ahead of the Beijing Olympics back in 2016, something the country had been using the modify the weather since 2008.

Johan Jaques is a senior meteorologist at environmental technology company KISTERS, where he said after the torrential rain in Dubai that there would be "unintended consequences" if this technology was used to modify the weather. Jaques went as far as saying there would be diplomatic consequences and future "weather wars".

Jaques said in a statement: "The Dubai floods act as a stark warning of the unintended consequences we can unleash when we use such technology to alter the weather. Additionally, we have little control over the aftermath of cloud seeding. Where exactly is it going to be raining effectively? Using techniques such as cloud seeding to bring much-needed rainfall in one area can cause flash floods and droughts in another".

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He added: "Anytime we interfere with natural precipitation patterns, we set off a chain of events that we have little control over. While there is a lot we know, there is still a lot we don't and there are still plenty of gaps in our understanding of these complex weather systems. Interference with the weather also raises all kinds of ethical questions, as changing the weather in one country could lead to perhaps unintended yet catastrophic impacts in another, after all, the weather does not recognise intentional borders".

"If we're not careful, unrestrained use of this technology could end up causing diplomatic instabilities with neighbouring countries engaging in tit-for-tat 'weather wars".