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Posted by on Jul 29, 2016 in TellMeWhy |

Can People Make Rain Fall?

Can People Make Rain Fall?

Can People Make Rain Fall? Yes, under special conditions, scientists can cause rain to fall. They can make rain only if clouds are present. The clouds must also be ready to produce rain. Usually, scientists spray crystals of dry ice (or solid carbon dioxide) into the clouds from an airplane.

The tiny particles of dry ice float around in the clouds, and the moisture in the clouds clings to these particles. As more and more moisture gathers around the particles, they become too heavy to float in the air, and so fall to the ground as rain. This method of spraying clouds is called “seeding.”

Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation (rain or snow), but hail and fog suppression are also widely practiced in airports.

Cloud seeding also occurs due to ice nucleators in nature, most of which are bacterial in origin. The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide).

Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. This can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. After promising research, the use of hygroscopic materials, such as table salt, is becoming more popular. Cloud seeding to increase snowfall takes place when temperatures within the clouds are between 19 and −4 °F (−7 and −20 °C).

Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice, will induce freezing nucleation. In mid-latitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based on the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water.

The formation of ice particles in super cooled clouds allows those particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If sufficient growth takes place, the particles become heavy enough to fall as precipitation from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as “static” seeding.

Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of “dynamic” seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds.

Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft or by dispersion devices located on the ground (generators or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upward by air currents after release.

An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva. The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds

The largest cloud seeding system is in the People’s Republic of China. They believe that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired.

There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions that accuse each other of “stealing rain” using cloud seeding. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally.

China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution. In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall.

The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12 main roads around Beijing. At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall since 1987 due to cloud seeding.

Content for this question contributed by Brooke Leighty, resident of Chico, Butte County, California, USA