Cloud Seeding Technology: An Alternative Way to Get Rains

Authors: Amit Kumar Jain*, Vinita Katiyar and Anjana

Published: 2025-01-16

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Water is one of the most basic commodities on earth sustaining human life. In many regions of the world, traditional sources and

supplies of ground water, rivers and reservoirs, are either inadequate or under threat from ever-increasing demands on water

from changes in land use and growing populations. Only a small part of the available moisture in clouds is transformed into

precipitation that reaches the surface. This has prompted scientists and engineers to explore the possibility of augmenting water

supplies by means of cloud seeding. Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification, a way of changing the amount or type of

precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which

alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide,

potassium iodide and dry ice. Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. Cloud seeding is done to enhance

the amount of precipitation that falls in a region, disperses fog and clouds so that a place can remain dry through precipitation,

minimize the sum of cloud cover, purify the air of pollutants, and assist in extinguishing wildfires through rain.

Cloud Seeding; Types of Cloud Seeding; Rain Enhancement