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Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation, mitigate hail or disperse fog. The usual objective is to increase rain or snow, either for its own sake or to prevent precipitation from occurring in days afterward. Cloud seeding is undertaken by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei. Common agents include silver iodide, potassium iodide, and dry ice, with hygroscopic materials like table salt gaining popularity due to their ability to attract moisture. Techniques vary from static seeding, which encourages ice particle formation in supercooled clouds to increase precipitation, to dynamic seeding, designed to enhance convective cloud development through the release of latent heat. Methods of dispersion include aircraft and ground-based generators, with newer approaches involving drones delivering electric charges to stimulate rainfall, or infrared laser pulses aimed at inducing particle formation. Despite decades of research and application, cloud seeding's effectiveness remains a subject of debate among scientists, with studies offering mixed results on its impact on precipitation enhancement. Some studies suggest it is "difficult to show clearly that cloud seeding has a very large effect". Environmental and health impacts are considered minimal due to the low concentrations of substances used. But concerns persist over the potential accumulation of seeding agents in sensitive ecosystems. The practice has a long history, with initial experiments dating back to the 1940s, and has been used for various purposes, including agricultural benefits, water supply augmentation, and event planning. Legal frameworks primarily focus on prohibiting the military or hostile use of weather modification techniques, leaving the ownership and regulation of cloud-seeding activities to national discretion. Despite skepticism and debate over its efficacy and environmental impact, cloud seeding continues to be explored and applied in regions worldwide as a tool for weather modification. Methods Salts The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. It can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. After promising research, the use of hygroscopic materials, such as table salt, is becoming more popular. When cloud seeding, increased snowfall takes place when temperatures within the clouds are between −20 and −7 °C. Freezing nucleation is induced by the introduction of substances similar to silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure like ice. In mid-altitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based on the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water. The formation of ice particles in supercooled clouds allows those particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If sufficient growth takes place, the particles become heavy enough to fall as precipitation from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as "static" seeding. Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of "dynamic" seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds. Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft or by dispersion devices on the ground (generators or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upward by air currents after release. Electric charges Since 2021, the United Arab Emirates have been using drones equipped with a payload of electric-charge emission instruments and customized sensors that fly at low altitudes and deliver an electric charge to air molecules. This method produced a significant rainstorm in July 2021. For instance, in Al Ain it rained 6.9 millimeters on 20–21 July. Infrared laser pulses An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva. The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds. Effectiveness Whether cloud seeding is effective in producing a statistically significant increase in precipitation is a matter of academic debate, with contrasting results depending on the study in question and contrasting opinion among experts. A study conducted by the United States National Academy of Sciences failed to find statistically significant support for cloud seeding's effectiveness. Based on its findings, Stanford University ecologist Jerry Bradley said: "I think you can squeeze out a little more snow or rain in some places under some conditions, but that's quite different from a program claiming to reliably increase precipitation." Data similar to that of the NAS study was acquired in a separate study conducted by the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project, but whereas the NAS study concluded that "it is difficult to show clearly that cloud seeding has a very large effect", the WWMPP study concluded that "seeding could augment the snowpack by a maximum of 3% over an entire season." In 2003, the US National Research Council (NRC) released a report stating, "science is unable to say with assurance which, if any, seeding techniques produce positive effects. In the 55 years following the first cloud-seeding demonstrations, substantial progress has been made in understanding the natural processes that account for our daily weather. Yet scientifically acceptable proof for significant seeding effects has not been achieved".: 13  A 2010 Tel Aviv University study claimed that the common practice of cloud seeding to improve rainfall, with materials such as silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide, seems to have little if any impact on the amount of precipitation. A 2011 study suggested that airplanes may produce ice particles by freezing cloud droplets that cool as they flow around the tips of propellers, over wings or over jet aircraft, and thereby unintentionally seed clouds. This could have potentially serious consequences for particular hail stone formation. In 2016, Jeff Tilley, director of weather modification at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, claimed that new technology and research has produced reliable results that make cloud seeding a dependable and affordable water supply practice for many regions. Moreover, in 1998 the American Meteorological Society held that "precipitation from supercooled orograph.... Discover the Linda Seed popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Linda Seed books.