What is Cloud Seeding?

Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing certain substances into the air that could serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, upon which water or ice crystals can form and eventually fall to the ground. These substances are often salts, such as silver iodide, that form crystals similar to ice crystals when exposed to cold water vapor and provide nucleation sites to supercooled liquid water or water vapor.

How Does it Work?

There are two main types of cloud seeding - cold Cloud Seeding  and warm also known as glaciogenic seeding, aims to produce snowfall from ice-crystal producing clouds. Silver iodide flares and ice nuclei are the most common materials used to seed supercooled clouds by providing sites for ice crystal formation to occur at higher temperatures than would naturally develop. This increases the likelihood of precipitation. Warm cloud seeding, also known as hygroscopic seeding, aims to produce rainfall from warm water clouds that do not produce precipitation efficiently on their own. Common materials used include salt (such as calcium chloride and sodium chloride). The increased presence of condensation nuclei aids the process of coalescence where smaller droplets join together to become larger rainfall drops.

History of Cloud Seeding

The earliest attempts to modify weather date back to General Electric scientist Vincent Schaefer conducting experiments on ice crystal formation in clouds in the late 1940s. This laid the groundwork for more intensive research and experimentation with silver iodide cloud seeding in the 1950s. One of the most well-known early cloud seeding projects was Operation Stormfury, which attempted to artificially weaken tropical cyclones through both warm and cold cloud seeding techniques from 1962 to 1983. Since the 1950s, over 50 countries around the world have explored weather modification programs, especially focused on increasing water supplies through snowpack and rainfall augmentation.

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