Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: A cloud-seeding experiment conducted in Maharashtra’s Solapur region has led to 18 per cent more rainfall than normal conditions, according to a research paper published recently in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS).
Titled ‘CAIPEEX – Indian cloud seeding scientific experiment’, the experiment was carried out by scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune and other institutes, including Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, USA.
CAIPEEX is the abbreviation for Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment.
The study involved hygroscopic cloud seeding, which is done in warm convective clouds with a cloud base height above the freezing level. Hygroscopic seeding material, dispersed from burning flares, activates as large droplets and then grows by diffusion.
“Updrafts then loft the growing drops to the region of sub-zero temperatures (when the cloud top goes above the freezing level), where they can freeze heterogeneously and grow more rapidly through riming and aggregation, more efficient processes than warm rain formation. In addition, the ice splintering through the Hallet Mossop process contributes to the growth of aggregates,” the research noted.
