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For many Ethiopians, cloud seeding was a newsflash when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addressed members of Parliament about the government’s performance in the technology sector.
He said the rain that rained down in recent weeks was the result of cloud seeding technology that the government introduced as part of general efforts to modernize various sectors and aid performance through modern technology. He recalled that the government has already enabled the country to have two space satellites, and efforts are also being made to apply Artificial Intelligence.
Although cloud seeding seemed to come as a shocking surprise to many people here in Ethiopia, studies indicate that it has been applied for many years in various countries for various purposes.
For example, according to Wikipedia, in 1891 Louis Gathmann suggested shooting liquid carbon dioxide at rain clouds to make them rain. During the 1930s, the Bergeron-Findeisen process theorized that supercooled water droplets present as ice crystals are released into rain clouds would cause rain.
Currently, the largest cloud seeding system is in the People’s Republic of China. They believe the amount of rain increases in several increasingly arid regions, including their capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired.
In India, cloud seeding operations were carried out in the 1980s due to a severe drought. In 2003 and 2004, cloud seeding started by the Karnataka government. Cloud seeding operations were also carried out in the same year through US-based Weather Modification Inc., in the state of Maharashtra. In 2008, there were plans for 12 districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
In Jakarta, cloud seeding was used to minimize flood risk in anticipation of heavy flooding in 2013, according to the Agency for Technology Assessment and Application.
Israel has been increasing rainfall in convective clouds since the 1950s. The practice involves the emission of silver iodide from airplanes and ground stations. Sowing takes place only in the northern parts of Israel. Since 2021, Israel stopped the rain improvement project.
To counter drought and a growing population in a desert region, Kuwait is embarking on its own cloud seeding program, with the local Public Environmental Authority conducting a study to measure its viability locally.
Cloud seeding in the UAE is a strategy used by the government to address water challenges in the country. The United Arab Emirates is one of the first countries in the Persian Gulf region to use cloud seeding technology. It adopted the latest technologies available globally, using sophisticated meteorological radars to monitor the country’s atmosphere throughout the day.
In the United Arab Emirates, cloud seeding began in 2010 as a project by meteorological authorities to create artificial rain. The project, which started in July 2010 and cost US $ 11 million, has been successful in creating rain storms in the deserts of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Meteorologists and scientists have estimated that cloud seeding operations can increase precipitation by 30 to 35 percent in a clear atmosphere and up to 10 to 15 percent in a cloudy atmosphere.
In Southeast Asia, open-air haze pollutes the regional environment. Cloud seeding has been used to improve air quality by encouraging rain. Thailand started a rain generation project in the late 1950s, known today as the Royal Rain Production Project. His early efforts spread sea salt into the air to trap moisture and dry ice to condense moisture and form clouds.
In the United States, cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought, to reduce the size of hail that forms in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and around airports. In the summer of 1948, the generally wet city of Alexandria, Louisiana, under Mayor Carl B. Close, planted a cloud of dry ice at the municipal airport during a drought; it quickly produced 0.85 inches of rain.
Bulgaria operates a national network of protection against hail, silver iodide rocket sites, strategically located in agricultural areas such as the valley of the roses. Each site protects an area of 10 square kilometers, the density of the site clusters is such that at least 2 sites will be able to target a single hail cloud, the initial detection of hail cloud formation upon rocket fire is typically 7 to 10 minutes throughout your process in order to sow much smaller hail formation, high in the atmosphere that will melt before reaching ground level.
Data collected since the 1960s suggest that huge losses in the agricultural sector are avoided annually with the protection system; Without seeds, the hail will flatten entire regions, with seeding this can be reduced to minor damage to the leaves of the smaller hailstones that did not melt.
Cloud seeding began in France during the 1950s with the intention of reducing hail damage to crops. The ANELFA project consists of local agencies that act within a non-profit organization. The success of the French program was supported by an analysis by Jean Dessens based on insurance data; that of the Spanish program in studies carried out by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. However, Jean Dessens’ results were strongly criticized and the effectiveness of land-based generators was questioned.
In Germany, civic participation societies organize cloud seeding at the regional level. A registered company maintains cloud seeding planes to protect agricultural areas from hail in the Rosenheim district, the Miesbach district, the Traunstein district and the Kufstein district.
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The Cumulus Project was a UK government initiative to investigate climate manipulation, in particular through cloud seeding experiments, which was in operation between 1949 and 1952. A conspiracy theory has circulated that the flooding of 1952 Lynmouth was caused by secret cloud seeding experiments carried out by the Royal Air Force. . However, meteorologist Philip Eden has given several reasons why “it is absurd to blame such experiments for the Lynmouth flood.”
In Australia, CSIRO and Hydro Tasmania’s summer activities in central and western Tasmania between the 1960s and the present appear to have been successful.[86] Planting in the catchment area of the Hydroelectric Commission in the Central Plateau achieved rainfall increases of up to 30 percent in autumn. The Tasmanian experiments were so successful that since then the Commission has carried out regular planting in the mountainous areas of the state.
In Mali and Niger, cloud seeding is also used on a national scale. In 1985, the Moroccan government started a cloud seeding program called ‘Al-Ghait’. The system was used for the first time in Morocco in 1999; it has also been used between 1999 and 2002 in Burkina Faso and since 2005 in Senegal.
The Ethiopian Herald March 27, 2021
