Cloud Seeding

In News 

Recently, the United Arab Emirates’s (UAE) National Center of Meteorology opted to go for cloud seeding to beat the extreme weather conditions.

About

• UAE has employed the technology of using drones to generate rainfall. 
• In India as well, Cloud seeding has earlier been attempted in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to address drought. 
• Similar experiments of cloud seeding had earlier been tried in Australia, America, Spain and France. 
• In the United Arab Emirates, the cloud seeding technique led to the creation of 52 storms in Abu Dhabi. 

Cloud Seeding (Weather Modification)

• Cloud seeding is a kind of weather modification technology to create artificial rainfall. It works only when there are enough pre-existing clouds in the atmosphere. 
• Drones are charged into the clouds and cause an electric shock due to which they clump together and cause rainfall.

Image Courtesy: News.com

• Otherwise, in this process either silver iodide, potassium iodide or dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is dumped onto the clouds causing rainfall. The seeds of chemicals can be delivered by plane or simply by spraying from the ground.
• Cloud-seeding chemicals can be dispersed in clouds either by fly-through aircraft or by ground-based dispersion devices that use rockets or guns to fire canisters into the sky.

Image Courtesy: Snowbrains

Applications of Cloud Seeding

• Creation of Rain: Cloud seeding is the best way to consider improving rainfall quantity in case of inadequate rainfall . Arid areas usually have conditions that may be harsh in terms of food security and a conducive environment for living.
  • Cloud seeding can bring rain, which makes the natural environment flourish and becomes more habitable.
• Boosting of the Economy: Agricultural production is important to the local economies of many regions around the world. Rain is important in achieving a proper harvest.
• Weather Regulation: Cloud seeding provides an avenue for controlling prevailing weather conditions in different areas.
• Geographically oriented: Cloud seeding is primarily done to create certain conditions in specific areas, also termed as microclimates. Places like airports, for instance, often use cloud seeding to create a stable condition for their runway. This is to ensure that planes are not restricted from taking off or landing.

Concerns

• Requires the use of Potentially Harmful Chemicals: Some chemicals are potentially harmful to the natural environment. Mostly, this applies to the plants which depend on the contaminated rain to produce food.

• It is expensive: Cloud seeding is a very expensive process. Planes are used to get the chemicals into the air and this is a big obstacle as some of the areas in need of this technology do not have enough financial backing to facilitate the process. 
• Poses Weather Problems: Cloud seeding could have many dire consequences to the environment if not well regulated. 
  • Dry areas are not usually well-positioned to handle certain weather conditions, and thus, may become easily flooded and cause more harm to the already struggling environment.

• Dependence on atmospheric conditions: For cloud seeding to be successful, certain uncontrollable conditions have to be met. for example
  • Clouds have to be present, not just any cloud but clouds capable of producing rain.
  •  The atmospheric conditions must also suit the process as certain conditions could lead to an unwarranted result like the rain falling in a different location or not falling at all.

Source: CBS News