GNY LIVE Sowing Rain: Cloud Seeding to solve India’s Drought and Pollution

Cloud seeding, a weather modification technique, involves dispersing substances such as silver iodide or salts into clouds to stimulate precipitation. Globally, it has been deployed to combat droughts and enhance snowfall, with countries such as the United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia experimenting with diverse applications ranging from rainfall augmentation to marine cloud brightening. In India, its use has attracted attention both for addressing water scarcity and as a proposed intervention against Delhi’s severe winter pollution. It was found from the controlled experiments during CAIPEEX in Solapur that rainfall can be enhanced by up to ≅ 46±13 per cent at some locations, as indicated by the Automatic Rain Gauges, and on average, and ≅ 18±2.6 per cent in a 100 square kilometres (km2) area downwind of the seeding location. This highlights its promise for drought-prone regions. Yet experts caution that Delhi’s dry winter atmosphere makes cloud seeding scientifically unfeasible for pollution control, and while concerns exist about the ecological risks of dispersing substances like silver iodide, no conclusive evidence of widespread harm due to cloud seeding has been documented. This article examines the science, applications, and limitations of cloud seeding, arguing that while it may play a role in water resource management, it cannot serve as a sustainable solution to urban air pollution. Those topics warrant more research into applications.

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