UAE continues to innovate

The National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology is helping fulfil the ambition of making our country a sustainable and knowledge-based economy

ince opening in 2007, the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) has taken a leading role in the study of climatic and environmental phenomenons. The Centre collects meteorological and seismic data, monitors changes that occur in the atmosphere and provides meteorological services for the benefit of the concerned authorities in the UAE. In terms of research, the NCMS exchanges information with other regional and international organisations with the aim of staying abreast of new scientific research and developments in meteorology, hydrology and seismology.

Recently, we welcomed in Abu Dhabi delegates to the World Meteorological Organisation’s seventh Regional Conference on Management of Meteorological and Hydrological Services. The World Meteorological Organisation, a specialised agency of the United Nations since 1950, facilitates the exchange of weather information across national borders with the aim of harmonising government policies towards climate phenomenons. With 191 member-states and territories, the organisation fosters collaborative study and monitoring of our atmosphere, the interaction of climate with land and oceans, and the consequences these processes have for the world’s water finite resources.

The importance of the Organisation’s work is illustrated by the recently issued ‘Provisional WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2016’, which noted the threats posed by major droughts in several regions due to the impact of El Nino on precipitation. For instance, insufficient rainfall in areas such as Southern Africa and the Amazon Basin means that up to 17 million people worldwide may be affected by poor harvests this year.

Given the urgent need to address such challenges, the NCMS plays an active role within an organisation that serves as the major forum for global cooperation on the science and understanding of meteorology and hydrology.

In pursuit of its mandate to develop UAE’s capacity in the relevant scientific and technical fields, the National Center of Meteorology and Seismology is developing local human and technical resources, an example being the launch of the first opportunity for UAE students to obtain a university degree in meteorology. The NCMS has also taken a leading role in training and capacity building for Emirati professionals and researchers, to the extent that nearly two thirds of current Centre employees are UAE nationals.

To monitor meteorological and seismic phenomenons, the NCMS has also established a national network of 75 automatic weather stations for weather monitoring, six weather radars covering all the UAE, eight air quality stations and 34 dust measurement stations.

The Centre has also created climate and seismic databases and contributed to the development of high-precision numerical weather predictions and simulation software in the UAE.

‘Door to the future’

All along, the Centre has been especially fortunate to benefit from the unstinting support of Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs of the UAE. Under the direction and guidance of Shaikh Mansour, the Centre is working on the basis that “scientific research is the door to the future”.

The Centre also plays a central coordination and management role in the UAE’s cloud-seeding activities. As one of the first Arabian Gulf countries to have employed such technology, research and development programmes in the UAE have focused on the use of hygroscopic materials, including sodium and potassium chloride, to induce rainfall. Experiments with these techniques have produced results promising enough to warrant further research on their application.

The NCMS is contributing to the UAE’s National Innovation Strategy through its role in the oversight of the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science, an ambitious initiative launched in January 2015 as one of the seven pillars of this strategy, which intends to establish the UAE as one of the most pioneering countries in the world.

The Programme offers a grant of $5 million (Dh18.39 million) over a three-year period, to be shared by up to five winning research proposals, selected by a two-stage merit review decision process.

This innovative venture has already drawn significant international attention. For its Second Cycle, the Programme received 91 pre-proposals, representing 398 scientists and researchers affiliated to 180 institutes from 45 countries. The significant level of interest from these figures testifies to the programme’s importance and marks it as a truly global initiative.

The programme’s success is already evident in ground-breaking work underway on precipitation enhancement, employing nanotechnology to accelerate water condensation, and cloud-seeding optimisation based on the study of convergence zones and land cover modification.

In seeking to spur new scientific and technical innovations to help stimulate rainfall, the programme has already made a global mark as an enabler of scientific research for the benefit of arid and semi-arid regions around the world.

By driving international efforts to strengthen water security through promoting scientific best-practices and international collaboration, the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology is helping to fulfil the UAE ambition of making our country a sustainable and knowledgebased economy.

Through its productive collaboration within international organizations such as the WMO, the NCMS will ensure that the UAE plays a leading role in tackling the climate, water and sustainability challenges currently faced by populations around the world.

Dr Abdullah Al Mandoos is the director of the National Centre for Meteorology & Seismology and the president of the Asian Association for Meteorology.