Rain is considered as a significant water source for several people around the globe especially farmers. Some places around the world are suffering from long season of droughts which harm and kill various crops, which often lead to horrifying famines. Cloud seeding is one of the scientific techniques that some researchers are utilizing in order to resolve the drought problem.
Cloud seeding is a known procedure, which utilizes a chemical dispersed into the sky in order to produce rain clouds. This procedure has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Lots of people look into understanding the different cloud seeding pros and cons in order to weigh in its functionality and efficiency.
The process of cloud seeding begins with the chemical. Usually, the chemical is known as silver iodine. This chemical contains a crystal structure, which is the same with water ice. If silver iodine has been dispersed into the clouds, this may cause the droplets of water within the clouds from undergoing nucleation that causes super cooling, formation of ice crystal and spontaneous clouds development.
It may also be conducted with some other chemicals, which include frozen calcium chloride, propane and carbon dioxide. This chemical will be brought into the atmosphere through projectiles or by aircraft that will shoot the chemicals to the sky.
The Pros of Cloud Seeding
1. The main positive outcome of cloud seeding is the fact that it can possibly create rain within areas that are in dire need of water.
2. The result of cloud seeding itself has a number of advantages of its own.
3. Improved amount of rainfall may enable food crops from growing in several areas which can’t normally support crops.
4. This may prevent in famine and so it could bring economic improvement to several developing countries.
5. Increased rainfall can also make some typically dry areas a lot more hospitable for most tourists. This will in turn allow those areas to become beneficial economically.
The Cons of Cloud Seeding
Even with several advantages, cloud seeding also has a number of disadvantages. These disadvantages may include the following:
1. A lot of possible drawbacks also exist with cloud seeding. Since the process of cloud seeding needs the placement of chemicals into the air, this will obviously concern the animals and plants that are affected below. How the used chemicals will affect the organisms that will be hit by the rainfall from cloud seeding will exactly be the most direct concern of using the process.
2. Now, the use of silver iodine is not yet recognized to lead to any severe negative effects on the health of animals and plants. However, a lot of organizations are continuously making some researches about its long term effects.
3. Aside from the health of organisms, the expense of cloud seeding is another common concern. Since it could be really expensive to deliver the chemicals to the sky and have these released into the air, the cost becomes another issue.
4. Lastly, management of the rainfall amount is another issue since cloud seeding can possibly result to flooding in several areas.
With the possible cloud seeding pros and cons, you may decide your stand on whether or not it is good for use.
