Is Iran's rain being stolen?

Low rainfall in Iran raises widespread debate about the possibility of human manipulation of climate change (Iranian press)

Tehran -

In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the repeated American attacks against targets belonging to the resistance movements allied with Tehran, the issue of “stealing clouds heading to the Islamic Republic, or making them rainless” has sparked great controversy in Iranian circles, bringing back previous official accusations against Israel of stealing Clouds and climate change in Iran.

After the Iranian weather forecast at the end of last summer predicted an autumn and winter rich in rain and snow, Iranian public opinion was surprised by the decrease in average rainfall across the country during the current water year, by 40% compared to the average statistics over the past 55 years.

In light of the decrease in rainfall in the capital, Tehran, by 56% compared to its long-term average, a segment of Iranians raised the possibility of some foreign parties manipulating the clouds for malicious purposes.

Snow covered the streets of Tehran in previous years (Iranian press)

Conspiracy theory

Although proposing the “conspiracy theory that accuses foreign countries of using modern technologies to manipulate the weather and transfer rain clouds from the Iranian sky to other regions” is not new to the Tehran authorities, the discussion of several video clips that show the contrasting weather conditions on both sides of the common Iranian-Turkish border Iranians have increased their skepticism and pointing fingers at what is known in Tehran as the “Zionist-American” axis.

In 2012, the former Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused “enemies” of diverting Iran’s share of rain clouds and making them sterile when they passed over Iran’s skies to cause drought within his country, following similar official statements that repeatedly described the phenomenon of drought as a suspicious matter.

Six years after Ahmadinejad’s accusations, the head of the Civil Defense Organization in Iran, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, revealed in 2018 “threads of foreign interventions aimed at changing climate conditions” in his country, accusing “the Zionist entity and another regional country - without naming them - “With cooperation to make Iranian clouds not rain.”

The Iranian general based his accusation on “scientific research conducted by Iranian centers that concluded that there were joint teams from some countries that made interventions in Iranian climatic conditions to make clouds sterile or steal snow,” he said.

Iran accuses foreign countries of stealing clouds and causing drought (Getty)

Human intervention

Although Al Jazeera Net contacted the office of the head of the Civil Defense Organization in Iran, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, more than once, he refused to comment on the controversy taking place in his country these days about the theft of clouds, and the organization’s position on the rumored foreign interventions in climate change.

For his part, Masoud Tajrishi, former assistant to the head of the Iranian Environment Organization, puts forward the hypothesis of “sterilizing and dissipating clouds” in his country’s skies, stressing that scientific research has come up with techniques that prevent rainfall in a geographical area, or deflect clouds to other areas, and that humans have become They are capable of raining clouds and seeding clouds.

In his speech to Al Jazeera Net, Tajrishi cites his experience about human intervention in the climate, as he had previously attended a military parade in Russia years ago, and the Moscow sky was cloudy at the time, so the Russians were able to deviate the path of the clouds using electromagnetic spectra, and prevent rain from falling for a specific period.

He concluded that human technologies are now capable of diverting the path of clouds in specific geographical spots and preventing them from falling rain, as well as emptying them or artificially seeding them, but “on a limited scale.”

Runaway phenomenon

The American High-Frequency Active Twilight Program (HARP Project) has always been a source of concern to Iranian circles over the past years. Some Iranian circles were quick to point the finger of blame at those in charge of this project, which prompted the Institute of Environmental and Climate Change Studies in Iran to hold its first scientific conference under Titled “The Role of Possible Regional Interventions in Changing Rainfall,” which denied the project’s ability to dissipate or sterilize the clouds in the sky.

Following the increasing interaction of Iranians on social media platforms and the Persian media about the reasons for the decline in heavenly descents and the possibility of human manipulation in climate change, Ali Seljuqa, head of the “Iranian Environmental Protection Zone,” instructed the Institute of Environment and the National Center for Climate Change in his country to study these accusations, but they did not reach a conclusion. Convincing scientific proof that clouds can be stolen or dispersed using the runaway phenomenon.

For his part, Tajrishi confirmed that the information available to him confirms the failure of the American HAP project in climate control.

Seljuk: Research has not found scientific evidence proving the possibility of stealing clouds or dissipating them using the Harp phenomenon (Iranian press)

Climate engineering

For his part, the former assistant to the presidency of the Iranian Environmental Protection Organization and head of the Environmental Protection Committee in the UNESCO Chair for Social Health, Mohammad Darwish, who previously supervised a number of research projects on the environment and climate change, confirms that some Eastern and Western powers have already begun giant climate control programs.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Darwish said, “The United States, China, and the Israeli entity have spent a lot over the past two decades to ‘engineer the climate’ and control it, but they did not achieve the desired results.” He added that humans today cannot control more than 20% of cloud rain or Prevent it from rain.

He pointed out that some developed powers are facing very large fires in their forests, but they are unable to control the climate and rain rain to extinguish these fires, attributing the reason for the low rainfall rate in his country to air pollution, excessive construction of dams, and high temperatures, which contribute to dissipating the clouds when they reach the Iranian sky.

Darwish added that his country began programs about cloud seeding and cloud seeding about half a century ago, but they have not significantly affected the rate of celestial descent yet.

Darwish: Western and Eastern powers spent a lot on climate engineering (Al Jazeera)

The most important challenges

Reducing the importance of the human factor's ability to control the climate has not yet been able to cool the heated debate in Iran about the reasons for the low rainfall in a country that "suffers more than 61% of its area from severe and very severe droughts," according to the head of the Research Center of the Iranian Parliament, Babak Nakahdari.

Nakahdari considers “the phenomenon of climate change to be the most important challenge” facing his country in the coming decades, warning of its negative repercussions on the environment, food security, energy, infrastructure, and urban management.

Source: Al Jazeera