‘Cloud seeding tried despite IMD’s no clouds alert’, Pg1

Key Highlights:

• IIT Kanpur researchers conducted cloud seeding in Delhi on October 28 despite IMD's alert of insufficient clouds.
• The experiment used 10 kg of a mixture containing silver iodide, common salt, and rock salt.
• This was Delhi's first cloud seeding experiment since 1972, aimed at improving air quality.
• The experiment was unsuccessful due to low moisture content in the clouds.

Detailed Insights:

• Cloud seeding involves spraying chemical aerosols into clouds to induce rain, and has been studied in India for decades.
• IITM Pune has conducted experiments on cloud seeding to enhance monsoon rain since 2009, but there is no concrete evidence that it works reliably.
• IIT Kanpur team aimed to test the efficacy of their "proprietary solution" for winter pollution, despite negative feedback from IITM and IMD.
• The implicit rule of cloud seeding is that it can only help in adding more water to warm clouds with minimum quantities of water vapor.
• IITM-CAIPEX experiment in Solapur, Maharashtra, showed that seeded clouds gave an average 46% more rain at the seeded locations relative to the unseeded ones.
• The CAIPEX experiment concluded that warm-cloud seeding was appropriate for enhancing only monsoon rainfall.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Cloud Seeding: The process of artificially inducing or increasing precipitation by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei.
• Warm Clouds: Clouds with temperatures above 0°C, typically found in tropical and subtropical regions.
• Silver Iodide: A chemical compound used in cloud seeding as an ice nucleating agent.