The United Arab Emirates recently announced that it plans to construct a mountain that can help the small nation have better control over the weather. While money for the project is not a problem, some scientists are skeptical about the plan.

The UAE currently has both the logistics and brain power to pull off such a feat. The Arab nation has already built an artificial island off the coast of its luxury city, Dubai, and a man-made ski hill inside the Mall of the Emirates.

But scientists are skeptical about the usefulness of an artificial mountain that could bring down more rainwater.

According to a local newspaper, the UAE’s government is currently working with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to plan the first phase of the project. About $400,000 have been already poured into the project to see whether building a mountain could bring more moisture to the bone-dry region.

The UAE currently spends about $600,000 every year for cloud-seeding operations. Planes disperse water-retaining chemicals such as magnesium, sodium chloride, and potassium chloride into clouds in an effort to trigger rainfall.

But the state believes that the cloud-seeding would be easier and more fruitful if there was an artificial mountain around that can create clouds, which can be later seeded more efficiently.

Roelof Bruintjes, lead researcher involved in the ambitious project recently told the press that his team was currently looking for the best type of mountain to collect moisture. Scientists are especially interested in the mountain’s height and slope inclination.

“We will have a report of the first phase this summer as an initial step,”

Bruintjes said.

Nevertheless, some researchers don’t believe a man-made mountain could be rain-inducing. They argue that the mountain would need a long ridge instead of a cone. Otherwise, the air would just hover over the mountain. Plus, mountains generate rain on the upslope side, so scientists don’t expect any benefit for the lower regions.

Experts also explained that the Arab Peninsula’s dry weather is influenced by the wind patterns coming from global atmospheric circulations, which no mountain is able to change.

Skeptics also believe that taxpayer money would be better spent on a research project designed to learn why a hot and humid area surrounded by the ocean is showered by so little rainfall.

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