BATHINDA: While a proposal to seed clouds with salts to induce artificial rain and reduce high pollution levels has been suggested for Delhi, a scientist from Cornell University argues that it may have limited effectiveness.
Daniele Visioni, a climate scientist specializing in geoengineering and climate interventions, explains, “Cloud seeding as a technology can, at most, slightly increase precipitation under certain conditions. It can’t create rain where there is no moisture in the air; it merely ‘forces’ some water to condense in one location rather than another. Since rainfall is naturally variable, it’s difficult to determine whether it wouldn’t have rained without seeding.”
“In the US, cloud seeding has shown some effectiveness under specific conditions, mostly for producing snow,” he adds.
Visioni also emphasizes that the only reliable way to reduce pollution is by avoiding fossil fuel combustion. His research focuses on sunlight reflection techniques, particularly adding aerosols to the stratosphere to cool the Earth.
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