In the world of today, it is not uncommon to hear of famine and drought. Africa and Australia are no strangers to these two phenomena. For me there is only one real explanation: a lack of water which is the result of a lack of rain. For years now, climatologists have researched and experimented with weather modification. A process which has become distinctly more advanced over the last decade is known as Cloud Seeding.
Cloud Seeding is an attempt to change the amount of precipitation that falls from clouds. This is done by dispersing substances into the air onto which water vapor condenses. These dispersed substances act as ice nuclei for raindrops. Basically, the process plants "rain seeds" into clouds in order to increase precipitation.
Cloud Seeding can be done by ground generators, plane (most effective) and rocket (not shown in diagram)
The most common chemical used for Cloud Seeding is silver iodide. This silver iodide is released into the air from flares attached to a planes wing. From here on the process of precipitation should take care of itself. In essence, Cloud Seeding is simple but hasn't yet been applied on a very large scale. The process tends to focus on specific areas rather than entire regions.
There has been dispute to exactly how effective Cloud Seeding is, but one thing is certain: it works! The effectiveness seems to depend on the region and cloud. The amount of precipitation due to seeding is also difficult to quantify. Cloud Seeding has been more effective in some instances than in others. I believe that Cloud Seeding needs to be fully research as it seems to be a way of combating drought or at least rain shortage. Cloud Seeding has already come a long way since it's concept first originated in about 1940.
I think that Cloud Seeding is a simple procedure that is a very plausible solution to rain shortage. Could it be THE solution? Could there be ways of reducing precipitation during times of flood with a similar process? I'd love to hear what you think!
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