Cloud seeding finally proven effective

Cloud seeding has been carried out for decades with varying results but has never been proven to actually work...until now:

Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
In the United States they invested heavily and it’s always been pretty unsuccessful – here in Australia it was invested quite heavily and very, very spotty results to be shown for it so I mean there’s a huge amount of scepticism in the field and some of its well warranted.


David Marshall
It does stretch credibility a bit to think that going up there with the cloud and throwing out a very small amount of chemical – grams really – that can have an affect over a wide area.

Narration
But, this cloud seeding programme has changed things. Run by Hydro Tasmania, it’s been going for four decades, despite the scepticism. And recently some Monash meteorologists analysed all their data.

Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
We went back through the records, we looked at all the rain gauge data over the last 46 years and we saw when they were seeding and when they weren’t seeding and we found a signal we found a statistically significant signal.

Narration
Finally the world had the much sort after hard evidence that cloud seeding can produce a significant amount of extra rain.

But there is a catch, could seeding will only work in specific areas where the clouds are super cooled, such as the clouds that come up from the antarctic:

Narration
But it turns out cloud seeding won’t work everywhere.

Narration
The reason it works in Tasmania is because of this cold, but very influential, part of the world.

Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
The Southern Ocean is huge, its 15 percent of the earth’s surface. In the winter it’s going to be the windiest spot in the world. The clouds over the Southern Ocean are very, very peculiar. They don’t want to freeze. I mean they’re super cooled, you get them and minus 10 minus 15 degrees and there are still a large portion of the clouds that are just liquid. That’s quite a bit of a surprise to us.


Narration
As the Southern Ocean air rolls in over southeast of Australia, it encounters mountains - and in just a few places the right conditions for cloud seeding form.

Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
What the satellite imagery is showing is really there are three spots in Australia where you could do this kind of cloud seeding.

Narration
There are the already-seeded Tasmania and Snowies. But the third spot is not seeded yet.

Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
It would be in the catchment area the Thompson. That would be the ideal location for this.


Narration
In other words the catchment area for drought-affected Melbourne. With the drought in Victoria now in its 13th year any extra water would be very welcome.


Assoc. Prof. Steve Siems
In Tasmania it looks like there getting about 12.5 gigalitres of water a month there getting a 5 percent increase over a target of about 25 hundred square kilometres. If you could do that in Melbourne I think you’d help a lot of people during this big dry.

The video hasn't been uploaded yet but I will link to it when it does, it's worth a watch, especially for those unsure of what cloud seeding is all about.

www.abc.net.au...

What are they using to seed the clouds?

Do you think this is a good practice?

reply to post by exposethosesecrets


They use Silver iodide, the quantities appear to be very minute.

As mentioned in the video (and transcript):

Dr Alex Nazarov
In the tanks we have about 150 grams of silver iodide in a solution of about 25, 27 litres of acetone. And that takes about three and a quarter hours to burn. So very, very small quantities.

I think that now that they have established that cloud seeding will only work in specific areas, the amount of Silver iodide being used will be greatly reduced, not that the amounts were particularly high anyway.

Here's the video that the above transcript is from:

reply to post by Chadwickus


Thanks for the informative thread... S&F

Hope they advance in this field and help Africa

reply to post by Chadwickus


Being that I live in hurricane infested Florida I have always paid attention to the weather.

Cloud seeding has been around for a very long time, and to me I can see the uses of it towards drought areas, like areas of Africa, and or even certain areas of the arid outback of Australia, but what if the people doing the deed, of seeding the cloud miscalculate?

What if they do it and the cloud goes the wrong direction by sheer chance or happenstance?

They could knock out an entire crop of food for a country or as well for one farmer and his family, and I cannot speak for the Australian Government, but I know the American Government would never fess up to it, or if they did, it would be to pay for the crops lost, not the family members who died due to sever flooding, or worse yet if the storm turned into a twister or hurricane.

Man, needs to find new passions, and less deadly acts to play with, because God, if you believe in him or her, depending on your religion, has those systems like the weather, cloning, and biology set up the way he liked them.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


Agreed that we shouldn't play god, particularly when it comes to weather modification.

But up until now there was no proof cloud seeding actually made a difference.

Now that there are known conditions for the seeding to work, hopefully it will be better controlled and regulated.

A couple of examples of seeding recklessly would be China before the Olympics and a city In Russia plans to do it to stop it snowing.