The image shows the radar antennas, not the “weather control” design – full fact

A photo of two white domes is published with misleading captions suggesting it is due to artificial weather manipulation.

The image was shared hundreds of times on Facebook with the caption: “Control the weather, control the world.”

It depicts two large white balls mounted on small houses with geometric shapes printed on them.

Although social media posts imply that they are related to weather control, they do not actually have any purpose regarding weather manipulation or geoengineering.

The Met Office defines geoengineering as “deliberate large-scale manipulation of climate”, which involves measures that can be used to alter climate systems to address some aspects of global warming.

Although weather modification already exists in the form of cloud seeding, which can be used to generate rain or snow, geoengineering is not currently practiced except in small-scale experiments.

Pictured is a pair of “radomes” (a combination of radar and dome), which are structures designed to protect radar antennas from adverse weather conditions while allowing signals to be received and transmitted from the radar antenna inside.

They appear to be a pair of radar radomes that were used for air traffic control and were located at the top of the Rock in Gibraltar until April 2024, when one of them was removed, leaving only one so-called “golf ball” in place.

Radars are used for a variety of purposes, including aviation, weather forecasting, navigation and surveillance.

Although radar is often used for weather analysis, such as predicting the structure and severity of storms, it cannot control weather conditions.

Weather radar works by sending out pulses of microwave radiation and then detecting the return signals reflected by water particles, whether rain or frozen snow, hail or sleet. Together with ground rain gauges, it is used to measure precipitation.

We have written repeatedly about online misinformation about geoengineering and images that falsely claim to show evidence of weather manipulation. Before sharing information, it’s important to consider whether what you see online is accurate, and our misinformation detection toolkit can help you do this.