Seeding

 If you want to know about weather modification and cloud seeding, read this BBC article.  From 2016. 

A rare group of pilots fly missions into storm clouds, encouraging the rain to fall with formidable flying skills and simple chemistry. 

Cloud seeding, the practice of injecting certain materials into storm cells to enhance precipitation, has drawn interest from a growing number of water-strapped countries – particularly in the past five years. Currently, around 60 countries on five continents are operating cloud seeding operations to enhance rainfall, mainly for reservoirs, watershed, and agriculture.

Initial research in weather modification began in the late 1940s, mainly in the US; by the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to major funding from General Electric, cloud seeding gathered pace.

“It’s still a bit worrying, because I think the public hasn’t got a very realistic understanding of what this is all about,” says Terblanche. He explains that in some regions of the world, people think that weather modification interferes with divine creation; in others, people mistakenly believe that cloud seeding in one region steals moisture from another; elsewhere, people fear that it causes flooding.

The salts are fired from a flare rack carried on the aircraft (Credit: Jean Francois Berthoumieu)

Ilona. 15.4.2024