IIT Kanpur's Cloud Seeding in Delhi Fails After 'No Clouds' Alert From IMD: Report
New Delhi: An attempt by researchers from IIT Kanpur to induce artificial rain to combat Delhi's severe air pollution failed last Tuesday (October 29) after the team went ahead with the plan despite warnings from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) that cloud conditions were unsuitable.
Researchers flew a Cessna aircraft twice over the capital, firing a ten kilogram concoction of silver iodide and salt into the sky, but failed to produce any rain.
It was the first time cloud seeding had been attempted in Delhi to improve air quality.
The failure came after the IMD and the Ministry of Earth Science (MoES) advised IIT Kanpur that there were "no clouds" or that they were insufficient for the procedure to work.
"We shared information with them on the cloud situation but didn't give any specific input on whether they should go ahead," a senior MoES scientist told The Hindu, adding, "We didn't give any advice because … there were no clouds."
Despite the negative forecast, IIT Kanpur director Manindra Agrawal said the decision to proceed was "deliberate" in order to test the team's "proprietary solution". He acknowledged they were aware of low moisture levels but wanted to collect data. "It may not have worked in India but it has in China and the United Arab Emirates," Agrawal stated.
Cloud seeding is a process by which clouds are ‘seeded’ — by introducing a cocktail of common chemicals — to trigger rainfall artificially.
It has been used to induce rain over water-stricken areas in order to aid agriculture and has also been identified as a temporary solution to poor air quality.
Cloud seeding's effectiveness remains a subject of scientific debate. A major 2017 Indian experiment to enhance monsoon rain in Maharashtra found that seeded clouds produced 46% more rainfall than unseeded ones, but under entirely different atmospheric conditions.
When it comes to mitigating air pollution, artificial rain “rain doesn’t help in the long run unless the cause of the problem is entirely removed”, Shamim Haque Mondal, who is with the physics division of the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Kolkata, has argued.
Constant exposure to the chemicals involved in cloud seeding, like silver iodide, could be dangerous for human health and the environment, some studies also show.
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