Rain Enhancement Through Cloud Seeding

Abshaev, A. M.; Flossmann, Andrèa I.; Siems, Steven T.; Prabhakaran, Thara; Yao, Zhanyu; Tessendorf, Sarah A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-90146-2_2

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…These unfavorable trends should motivate scientists and stake holders to solve the problem and evaluate the prospects for the use of RE through CS [8] as one of the possible solutions. Ideally, its use should fully or partially compensate for the precipitation reduction trend and even exceed it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other organizations on behalf of the UN-Water Task Force analyzed sustainability of replenishing fresh water from unconventional water resources [6,7], such as tapping low-saline offshore and onshore deep groundwater, use of treated municipal wastewater, collecting of fog water, shipping towed icebergs from Antarctica and ballast water held in tanks and cargo holds of ships, and also rain enhancement (RE) technology through cloud seeding (CS) [8,9]. There are also known attempts to stimulate clouds and precipitation development with the help of jet and thermal meteotrons [10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…RE can be considered one management tool as a part of a general solution to tackling water scarcity [8,[14][15][16][17][18][19]. The methodology is based on dispersing of glaciogenic or hygroscopic aerosol into suitable clouds through artillery rockets, airborne seeding, autonomous uncrewed aircraft systems or ground-based interventions [8,15] with the intention of modifying a chain of microphysical processes resulting in the stimulation of additional precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This technology has been developed since the middle of the last century, and in a number of successful experiments, a statistically significant increase in precipitation from clouds by 5-20% was obtained compared to the amount produced by untreated naturally developing clouds [8,9,14,15,[19][20][21][22]. Analysis of the extra area effect of CS on precipitation [23] showed positive (5-15%) increases on the downwind side of the experimental area, for both winter orographic cloud seeding and summer convective cloud seeding projects which may extend to a couple of hundred kilometers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of Cloud Resources and Potential for Rain Enhancement: Case Study—Minas Girais State, Brazil

Abshaev,

Kolskov

et al. 2023

Atmosphere

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Water scarcity due to rainfall variability, and exacerbated by climate change, is prevalent in many regions of the world. Lack of precipitation and excessive water extraction contribute to the intensification of the problem. Among different mitigation measures, rain enhancement through cloud seeding could be a tool as part of a water management strategy to replenish ground water sources. However, implementation of this technology requires proper preliminary analysis of the available cloud data and specific meteorological conditions under which rainfall forms. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential of for rain enhancement in Minas Gerais State in Brazil. The paper focuses on analysis of multiyear climate reanalysis ERA-5, upper air sounding, weather radar and ground stations data. Analysis showed that, between 2000 and 2019, precipitation declined on average by 212 mm per annum or 21% compared to the long term climatological mean. The natural precipitation, however, remains sufficiently high to implement weather modification technology. Assuming an increase of 15–20% could be achieved on a catchment area basis, the increases would be significant and could offset the recently observed decline in natural precipitation. The methodology proposed in this study can be used as a baseline for similar analysis in other vulnerable regions of the world experiencing freshwater shortages or declines. Its shortcomings and uncertainties are also discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of Cloud Resources and Potential for Rain Enhancement: Case Study—Minas Girais State, Brazil

Abshaev,

Kolskov

et al. 2023

Atmosphere

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“…Cloud seeding operations are gaining momentum, which began nearly 65 years ago in China to induce rainfall after extended periods of heatwaves and drought 33 . Cirrus cloud seeding aids in precipitation formation by injecting silver iodide into the lower atmosphere to mimic ice crystallinity while modifying the physical chemistry of super-cooled mixed phase clouds, is gaining momentum 34,35,36 . Modeling studies integrating global circulation models (e.g., ECHAM6-HAM, CESM-CAM5) and scenario-speci c forcing data explore the feasibility of these cloud seeding strategies and the associated impacts on radiative and climate response patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Earth System Responses to Climate Mitigation and Intervention with Scenario-Based Simulations and Data-Driven Insight

Gay,

Miller,

Miner

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Given a world increasingly dominated by climate extremes, large-scale geoengineering interventions to modify the Earth’s climate appears inevitable. However, geoengineering faces a conundrum: accurately forecasting the consequences of climate intervention in a system for which we have incomplete observations and an imperfect understanding. We evaluate the potential implications of mitigation and intervention strategies with a set of experiments utilizing historical reanalysis data and scenario-based model simulations to examine the global response to deploying these strategies. Key findings included a global mean surface temperature and total precipitation increases of 1.374\(\pm\)0.481\(^\circ\)C and 0.045\(\pm\)0.567 mm day−1 respectively over the observed period (i.e., 1950–2022). Mitigation and intervention simulations reveal pronounced regional anomalies in surface temperature and erratic interannual variability in total precipitation, with surface temperatures up to 7.626\(^\circ\)C in Greenland, Northern Siberia, and the Horn of Africa down to -2.378ºC in Central Africa and Eastern Brazil, and total precipitation increases of 1.170 mm day−1 in Southern Alaska down to -1.195 mm day− 1 in Colombia and East Africa. Furthermore, [CH4] dynamics indicated the potential to alter global and regional climate metrics but presented significant regional and global variability based on scenario deployment. Collectively, intervention and mitigation simulations tended to overestimate the variability and magnitude of surface temperature and total precipitation, with substantial regional deviations and scenario-dependent estimation heterogeneity for [CH4]. Furthermore, forward projections indicate that both mitigation and intervention scenarios can lead to varied climate responses, emphasizing the complexity and uncertainty in predicting exact outcomes of different geoengineering strategies. By constraining our investigation scope to include monthly surface temperature, total precipitation, and atmospheric methane concentration [CH4], we find these simulations were capable of accurately capturing departures but unable to perfectly represent patterns of warming and precipitation teleconnections clearly identified in the observational record.

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