Mumbai: With several districts of Maharashtra facing a drought like situation, China has offered to share its cloud seeding technology which could be used to artificially induce rain in the parched region.
According to a Hindustan Times report, the offer to share the technology free of cost was made during Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Shanghai secretary, Han Zheng’s visit to India earlier this month. During a meeting with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Han offered Chinese assistance in mitigating the drought situation in the state. The offer attains significance because China has historically not been keen on sharing this technology with other nations.
What is cloud seeding?
It is a process of intervening chemically to induce precipitation — rain or snow — from clouds. Rain happens when moisture in the air reaches levels at which it can no longer be held, and cloud seeding aims to facilitate and accelerate that process by making available chemical ‘nuclei’ around which condensation can take place. These ‘seeds’ of rain can be the iodides of silver or potassium, dry ice (solid carbon dioxide), or liquid propane. Research has shown promising results from the use of salts,
including table salt, as well.
It involves use of infrastructure such as aircraft, radar, balloons and measuring and communications equipment, and is not cheap.
The largest cloud seeding system is in the People's Republic of China. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally. China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution. In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall.
HOW CLOUD SEEDING WORKS:
* Particles of dust or salt that have the ability to absorb moisture from the air rise as ‘haze’ into clouds.
* These hygroscopic particles form ‘nuclei’ around which moisture builds, but no rain can occur unless they reach a certain size.
* An aircraft (or rocket from the ground) can fire flares of chemicals that act as aerosols — additional nuclei in the cloud.
* As the particles of moisture grow larger, it may rain. How much it rains depends on the kind of cloud, among other things .
