Cloud seeding programs are scheduled for the fall, head of the National Cloud Seeding Research Center of Iran said.
Since the beginning of the Persian New Year (March 20), there has been more rainfall compared to the months before.
Some contribute the rise in precipitation to cloud seeding. However, Farid Golkar said. “There is no seeding operations in the spring”.
The project will be carried out in fall using three planes in seven provinces of Yazd, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, Kohgilouyeh-Boyerahmad, Isfahan, Kerman and Fars, , IRNA reported him as saying.
Cloud seeding can produce the desired results only in regions where there is rain. It usually enhances rainfall by about 30%.
The project will be implemented this year after a two-year halt. It was shelved in 2018 (one of the driest years in 70 years) and in 2019 due to budgetary constraints.
Located in an arid and semi-arid region, Iran has suffered from drought for decades.
Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is a way of attempting to change the amount or type of precipitation by dispersing substances into the air, which serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, and alter the cloud's microphysical processes.
For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft or drone flies through a cloud.
According to official data, projects have been undertaken (at irregular intervals) since 2008 in several provinces namely Tehran, East and West Azarbaijan, Gilan and Mazandaran.
According to Golkar, average rainfall in Iran usually is one third of the world. In short, Iran is always in the red zone when it comes to rains and depletion of water resources. Even when the rains are normal it is still below the global average.
Efficient or Not?
Given that the practice was invented in the 1940s, it seems rather surprising that to this day no one really knows if cloud seeding is worth the hassle.
Despite the fact that 56 countries had cloud seeding operations in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Association, evidence for its efficacy is limited. Previous attempts have estimated that the process leads to anything between 0% and 50% more rainfall.
A team of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder are trying to be more precise. Earlier this year they carried out three injections of silver iodide into a natural cloud formation over western Idaho.
They then used a new technique, which involved peering into the clouds using radar, to measure how much additional snow fell as a result.
Based on the team’s calculations, snow fell for about 67 minutes, dusting roughly 2,330 square kilometers of land in about a tenth of a millimeter of snow, which does not sound like much in total.
