Language
Country/Area
No result found
The magic of cloud seeding: Can you really make rain from clouds?
As water resources become increasingly scarce due to climate change, many countries are beginning to explore various ways to regulate the weather, and cloud seeding has become a hot topic. Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation, or even reduce the formation of hail or disperse fog. The main purpose of this technology is to increase rainfall or snowfall to improve water resources as well as agricultural production.
The basic principle of cloud seeding is to release specific substances into the clouds to make water molecules gather and form precipitation.
Cloud seeding typically involves the use of chemicals such as silver iodide, sodium chloride (table salt), and dry ice. When cloud seeding is used, snowfall is promoted when the temperature within the cloud layer is between −20 and −7°C. This process, called static seeding, induces condensation by adding a substance whose crystal structure itself resembles ice. In convective clouds during the warm season, convection is initiated by releasing latent heat, which is called dynamic seeding. It is reported that since 2021, the United Arab Emirates has begun using drones to deliver electric charges to increase the chance of rainfall. This innovative technology brought obvious rainfall effects in July 2021.
Some studies have shown that cloud seeding can increase the chance of snowfall, but the exact effectiveness remains controversial.
The effectiveness of cloud seeding has sparked widespread debate in the academic community, with different studies yielding conflicting results and experts disagreeing. A study by the National Academy of Sciences did not find sufficient evidence to support that cloud seeding can significantly increase precipitation. The study's conclusions have prompted ecologists to wonder whether cloud seeding is as reliable as it's claimed to be, rather than an emergency and occasional solution.
Future cloud seeding technology is also constantly improving. For example, in a 2021 experiment in Germany, researchers explored using pulses of infrared lasers to direct reactions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air to form particles that can form rain. As technology continues to innovate, the implementation methods of cloud seeding will evolve to provide solutions for water resource management in different countries and regions.
As technology develops, the environmental and health impacts of cloud seeding have also received attention, and experts point out that its potential negative effects should not be ignored.
However, environmentalists are concerned about the potential impacts that long-term use of cloud seeding could have on ecosystems. Although some studies have pointed out that the impact of substances released by cloud seeding on the environment is minimal, this impact cannot be ignored in some sensitive ecological environments. Whether accumulated spraying agents will cause damage to local species, especially in extremely fragile ecosystems, is an urgent issue that the scientific community needs to address.
Cloud seeding has a long history, with the technique being used in agriculture, irrigation and rainfall management for large events since it was first experimented with in the 1940s. The usual legal framework focuses on prohibiting the military or hostile use of weather modification technologies, with more autonomy on the ownership and regulation of cloud seeding activities.
While controversy continues regarding the effectiveness and environmental impact of cloud seeding, the technique has been explored and applied in several regions around the world as an important tool for weather modification. Does this mean that in the future we will be able to truly control the weather through technology, so that rain from the sky will no longer be a mere dream?
