Cloud Seeding

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Top Highlights

• process of spreading either dry ice or more commonly, silver iodide aerosols, into the upper part of clouds to try to stimulate the precipitation process and form rain.

• uses planes to spray clouds with chemicals to condense smaller particles into larger rain droplets.

• increases rainfall rates by approximately 10% to 30% per year and cloud seeding operations cost much less than the desalination process.

• Methods

• Hygroscopic Cloud Seeding:

• Disperses salts through flares or explosives in the lower portions of clouds. The salt grows in size as water joins with them

• Static Cloud Seeding:

• spreading a chemical like silver iodide into clouds. The silver iodide provides a crystal around which moisture can condense.

• moisture is already present in the clouds, but silver iodide essentially makes rain clouds more effective at dispensing their water.

• Dynamic Cloud Seeding

• to boost vertical air currents, which encourages more water to pass through the clouds, translating into more rain

• considered more complex than static cloud seeding because it depends on a sequence of events working properly.

• Applications

• relief to drought-stricken areas

• Project Varshadhari’ in Karnataka in 2017

• augment production of hydroelectricity during the last 40 years in Tasmania, Australia.

• to maintain minimum summer flows of the rivers and dilute the impact of treated wastewater discharges

• Project Sky Water” of the U.S.A. in 1962 for weather modification through cloud seeding aimed at fog dispersal, hail suppression, and cyclone modification

• to settle down toxic air pollutants through the rain

• Central Pollution Control Board along with other researchers mulled the use of cloud seeding to tackle Delhi’s air pollution.