The secret behind the Delhi government’s plans to create artificial rain…🌧️
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00:00Artificial Rain
00:08The Delhi government is mulling over inducing man-made rain to improve the capital's worsening
00:14air quality.
00:15Sounds like playing God.
00:18Let's break it down.
00:21Artificial rain is induced through a process called cloud seeding.
00:25The process of creating artificial rain isn't very different from natural rain.
00:29Artificial rain happens when water vapours in the clouds condense into tiny droplets,
00:34which then come down as precipitation or rain due to gravity.
00:39During cloud seeding, planes fly over clouds, spraying them with particles like silver iodide
00:45crystals, potassium iodide and dry ice.
00:49These particles act as seeds for water droplets to condense around in the cloud.
00:54As more droplets join together, they become larger and heavier until it rains.
01:00So man-made rain is essentially giving clouds a little push instead of waiting for the clouds
01:05to get heavier on their own.
01:09In the past, seeding has been tried in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu during monsoon
01:14season to tackle water scarcity.
01:17In 2023, Delhi's Environment Minister Gopal Rai met with IIT Kanpur scientists to discuss
01:23this.
01:24He said cloud seeding needs at least 40 per cent cloud cover to work, and the possibility
01:29of that was between 20th and 21st November.
01:33When water rains, the dust particles in the air flow down with the water.
01:41At that time, the environment is free from pollution.
01:46Although Delhi is considering artificial rain to disperse air pollution and reduce dust
01:51and smog, there are several other benefits of doing this.
01:54Cloud seeding can bring rainfall to drought-hit or rainfall-deficit regions to supplement
01:59the natural water source.
02:01It can also increase snowfall during the winter months, make dry areas more liveable and help
02:07put out wildfires.
02:09But it isn't entirely foolproof.
02:11Cloud seeding is not a permanent solution for air pollution.
02:14It's more of a temporary fix.
02:22It needs suitable meteorological conditions, which are often unpredictable.
02:30Although there isn't a lot of research on the effects of silver iodide on the environment,
02:36some studies suggest that it might cause iodism, a kind of iodine poisoning leading to rashes,
02:43anemia, diarrhoea, and headaches, among others.
02:47It can inadvertently change climatic conditions, like alter wind patterns, cause unexpected
02:52weather events, and even cause flooding, storms, and hail.
02:56The pros, however, may outweigh the cons.
02:59Alan Robock, a researcher at Rutgers University, wrote in his paper,
03:04Risks or concerns like unwanted ecological changes, ozone depletion, continued ocean
03:10acidification, erratic changes in rainfall patterns, rapid warming at seeding were to
03:15be stopped abruptly, airplane effects, to name a few, may just not be bad enough to
03:21override the imperative to keep temperatures down.
03:26Cloud seeding was first tested in 1947 in Massachusetts, US, to produce a snowstorm.
03:31It was also tried out in India in 1967, using common salt to induce rain in Delhi, Agra,
03:38and Jaipur.
03:39Since then, numerous countries like the US, China, Russia, the UAE, Australia, Israel,
03:45Thailand, and Indonesia have been using artificial rain mostly to tackle water scarcity.
03:51Polaris market research showed that in 2021, the cloud seeding market was worth more than
03:56$120 million and is expected to cross $180 million by 2030.
04:05It's an expensive endeavor, said Dr. Abrawal.
04:08The IIT Kanpur team told the Delhi government that it would cost Rs. 1 lakh for every square
04:13kilometre and recommended covering 300 square kilometres to start with.
04:17A government official had earlier told news agency PTI that Delhi had agreed to bear the
04:40cost of phase 1 and 2 of artificial rain, which would be about Rs. 13 crore.