Cloud seeding

Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of
precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud
condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual
intent is to increase precipitation (rain or snow), but hail and fog suppression are also widely
practised in airports where harsh weather conditions are experienced.
Cloud seeding also occurs due to ice nucleators in nature, most of which are bacterial in origin.

Methodology
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. This 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 −4 and 19°F (−20 and −7°C). Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a
crystalline structure similar to that of ice, will induce freezing nucleation.
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 located on the
ground (generators or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft,
silver iodid 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.[citation needed]
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
still a matter of academic debate, with contrasting results depending on the study in question, and
contrasting opinion among experts.
A study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences failed to find statistically significant
support for the effectiveness of cloud seeding. Based on the report's findings, Stanford University
ecologist Rob Jackson 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. However, 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".[9]:13
A 2010m 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.
However, Jeff Tilley, director of weather modification at the Desert Research Institute in Reno,
claimed in 2016 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 orographic clouds
(clouds that develop over mountains) has been seasonally increased by about 10%."
Despite the mixed scientific results, cloud seeding was attempted during the 2008 Summer
Olympics in Beijing to coax rain showers out of clouds before they reached the Olympic city in
order to prevent rain during the opening and closing ceremonies. Whether this attempt was
successful is a matter of dispute, with Roelof Bruintjes, who leads the National Center for
Atmospheric Research's weather-modification group, remarking that "we cannot make clouds or
chase clouds away."

Impact on environment and health

With an NFPA 704 health hazard rating of 2, silver iodide can cause temporary incapacitation or
possible residual injury to humans and other mammals with intense or chronic exposure. However,
there have been several detailed ecological studies that showed negligible environmental and health
impacts. The toxicity of silver and silver compounds (from silver iodide) was shown to be of low order in
some studies. These findings likely result from the minute amounts of silver generated by cloud
seeding, which are about one percent of industry emissions into the atmosphere in many parts of the
world, or individual exposure from tooth fillings.
Accumulations in the soil, vegetation, and surface runoff have not been large enough to measure above
natural background. A 1995 environmental assessment in the Sierra Nevada of California and a 2004
independent panel of experts in Australia confirmed these earlier findings.
"In 1978, an estimated 3,000 tonnes of silver were released into the US environment. This led the US
Health Services and EPA to conduct studies regarding the potential for environmental and human
health hazards related to silver. These agencies and other state agencies applied the Clean Water Act
of 1977 and 1987 to establish regulations on this type of pollution."
Cloud seeding over Kosciuszko National Park—a biosphere reserve—is problematic in that several
rapid changes of environmental legislation were made to enable the trial. Environmentalists are
concerned about the uptake of elemental silver in a highly sensitive environment affecting the pygmy
possum among other species as well as recent high level algal blooms in once pristine glacial lakes.
Research 50 years ago and analysis by the former Snowy Mountains Authority led to the cessation of
the cloud seeding program in the 1950s with non-definitive results. Formerly, cloud seeding was
rejected in Australia on environmental grounds because of concerns about the protected species, the
pygmy possum. Since silver iodide and not elemental silver is the cloud seeding material, the claims of
negative environmental impact are disputed by peer-reviewed research as summarized by the
international Weather Modification Association.

History of cloud seeding

In 1891 Louis Gathmann suggested shooting liquid carbon dioxide into rain clouds to cause them to
rain. During the 1930s, the Bergeron–Findeisen process theorized that supercooled water droplets
present while ice crystals are released into rain clouds would cause rain. While researching aircraft
icing, General Electric (GE)'s Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir confirmed the theory. Schaefer
discovered the principle of cloud seeding in July 1946 through a series of serendipitous events.
Following ideas generated between him and Nobel laureate Langmuir while climbing Mt
Washington in New Hampshire, Schaefer, Langmuir's research associate, created a way of
experimenting with supercooled clouds using a deep freeze unit of potential agents to stimulate ice
crystal growth, i.e., table salt, talcum powder, soils, dust, and various chemical agents with minor
effect. Then one hot and humid July 14, 1946, he wanted to try a few experiments at GE's
Schenectady Research Lab
He was dismayed to find that the deep freezer was not cold enough to produce a "cloud" using
breath air. He decided to move the process along by adding a chunk of dry ice just to lower the
temperature of his experimental chamber. To his astonishment, as soon as he breathed into the deep
freezer, he noted a bluish haze, followed by an eye-popping display of millions of microscopic ice
crystals, reflecting the strong light rays from the lamp illuminating a cross-section of the chamber.
He instantly realized that he had discovered a way to change super-cooled water into ice crystals.
The experiment was easily replicated, and he explored the temperature gradient to establish the
−40°C limit for liquid water.
Within the month, Schaefer's colleague, the atmospheric scientist Dr.Bernard Vonnegut, was
credited with discovering another method for "seeding" super-cooled cloud water. Vonnegut
accomplished his discovery at the desk, looking up information in a basic chemistry text and then
tinkering with silver and iodide chemicals to produce silver iodide. Together with Professor Henry
Chessin, of SUNY Albany, a crystallographer, he co-authored a publication in Science and received
a patent in 1975. Both methods were adopted for use in cloud seeding during 1946 while working
for GE in the state of New York.
Schaefer's method altered a cloud's heat budget; Vonnegut's altered formative crystal structure, an
ingenious property related to a good match in lattice constant between the two types of crystal. (The
crystallography of ice later played a role in Vonnegut's brother Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle).
The first attempt to modify natural clouds in the field through "cloud seeding" began during a flight
that began in upstate New York on 13 November 1946. Schaefer was able to cause snow to fall near
Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts, after he dumped six pounds of dry ice into the target
cloud from a plane after a 60-mile easterly chase from the Schenectady County Airport.
Dry ice and silver iodide agents are effective in changing the physical chemistry of super-cooled
clouds, thus useful in augmentation of winter snowfall over mountains and under certain conditions,
in lightning and hail suppression. While not a new technique, hygroscopic seeding for enhancement
of rainfall in warm clouds is enjoying a revival, based on some positive indications from research in
South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. The hygroscopic material most commonly used is table salt.
It is postulated that hygroscopic seeding causes the droplet size spectrum in clouds to become more
maritime (bigger drops) and less continental, stimulating rainfall through coalescence. From March
1967 until July 1972, the US military's Operation Popeye cloud-seeded silver iodide to extend the
monsoon season over North Vietnam, specifically the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation resulted in
the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days. The 54th
Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war".
One private organization that offered, during the 1970s, to conduct weather modification (cloud
seeding from the ground using silver iodide flares) was Irving P. Krick and Associates of Palm
Springs, California. They were contracted by Oklahoma State University in 1972 to conduct a
seeding project to increase warm cloud rainfall in the Lake Carl Blackwell watershed. That lake
was, at that time (1972–73), the primary water supply for Stillwater, Oklahoma and was
dangerously low. The project did not operate for a long enough time to show statistically any
change from natural variations.
An attempt by the United States military to modify hurricanes in the Atlantic basin using cloud
seeding in the 1960s was called Project Stormfury. Only a few hurricanes were tested with cloud
seeding because of the strict rules set by the scientists of the project. It was unclear whether the
project was successful. Hurricanes appeared to change slightly in structure, but only temporarily.
The fear that cloud seeding could potentially change the course or power of hurricanes and
negatively affect people in the storm's path stopped the project.
Two federal agencies have supported various weather modification research projects, which began
in the early-1960s: The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation; Department of the
Interior) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Department of
Commerce). Reclamation sponsored several cloud seeding research projects under the umbrella of
Project Skywater from 1964 to 1988, and NOAA conducted the Atmospheric Modification Program
from 1979 to 1993. The sponsored projects were carried out in several states and two countries
(Thailand and Morocco), studying both winter and summer cloud seeding. From 1962 to 1988
Reclamation developed cloud seeding applied research to augment water supplies in the western
US. The research focused on winter orographic seeding to enhance snowfall in the Rocky
Mountains and Sierra Nevada, and precipitation in coast ranges of southern California. In California
Reclamation partnered with the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR) to sponsor the
Serra Cooperative Pilot Project (SCPP), based in Auburn CA, to conduct seeding experiments in the
central Sierra. The University of Nevada and Desert Research Institute provided cloud physics,
physical chemistry, and other field support. The High Plains Cooperative Pilot Project (HIPLEX),
focused on convective cloud seeding to increase rainfall during the growing season in Montana,
Kansas, and Texas from 1974 to 1979. In 1979, the World Meteorological Organization, and other
member-states led by the Government of Spain conducted a Precipitation Enhancement Project
(PEP) in Spain, with inconclusive results due probably to location selection issues. Reclamation
sponsored research at several universities including Colorado State University, Universities of
Wyoming, Washington, UCLA, Utah, Chicago, NYU, Montana, Colorado and research teams at
Stanford, Meteorology Research Inc., and Penn State University, and South Dakota School of
Mines and Technology, North Dakota, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma. Cooperative efforts
with state water resources agencies in California, Colorado, Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas,
and Arizona assured that the applied research met state water management needs. The High Plains
Cooperative Pilot Project also engaged in partnerships with NASA, Environment Canada, and the
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). More recently, in cooperation with six western
states, Reclamation sponsored a small cooperative research program called the Weather Damage
Modification Program, from 2002–2006.
In the United States, funding for research has declined in the last two decades. However, the Bureau
of Reclamation sponsored a six-state research program from 2002–2006, called the "Weather
Damage Modification Program". A 2003 study by the United States National Academy of Sciences
urges a national research program to clear up remaining questions about weather modification's
efficacy and practice.
In Australia, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
conducted major trials between 1947 and the early-1960s:
•1947 – 1952: CSIRO scientists dropped dry ice into the tops of cumulus clouds. The method
worked reliably with clouds that were very cold, producing rain that would not have otherwise
fallen.
•1953 – 1956: CSIRO carried out similar trials in South Australia, Queensland and other states.
Experiments used both ground-based and airborne silver iodide generators.
•Late-1950s and early-1960s: Cloud seeding in the Snowy Mountains, on the Cape York Peninsula
in Queensland, in the New England District of New South Wales, and in the Warragamba catchment
area west of Sydney.
Only the trial conducted in the Snowy Mountains produced statistically significant rainfall increases
over the entire experiment.
An Austrian study to use silver iodide seeding for hail prevention ran during 1981–2000, and the
technique is still actively deployed there.
Asia
China
The largest cloud seeding system is in the People's Republic of China. They believe that it increases
the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing
silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by
neighboring regions that accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding. China used cloud
seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to have a dry Olympic season. In
February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after
four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase
snowfall. The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12
main roads around Beijing. At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall
since 1987 due to cloud seeding.

India
In India, cloud seeding operations were conducted during the years 1983, 1984–87,1993-94 by
Tamil Nadu Govt due to severe drought. In the years 2003 and 2004 Karnataka government initiated
cloud seeding. Cloud seeding operations were also conducted in the same year through US-based
Weather Modification Inc. in the state of Maharashtra. In 2008, there were plans for 12 districts of
state of Andhra Pradesh.

Indonesia
In Jakarta, cloud seeding was used to minimize flood risk in anticipation of heavy floods in 2013,
according to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.

Islamic Republic of Iran

IRGC AF has been taking a cloud seeding contract project through UAVs in 10 Iranian provinces.

Israel
Israel has been enhancing rain in convective clouds since the 1950s. The practice involves emitting
silver iodide from airplanes and ground stations. The seeding takes place only in the northern parts
of Israel.

Kuwait
To counter drought and a growing population in a desert region, Kuwait is embarking on its own
cloud seeding program, with the local Environment Public Authority conducting a study to gauge its
viability locally.

United Arab Emirates

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 on a global level, using
sophisticated weather radar to monitor the atmosphere of the country around the clock.
In the UAE, cloud seeding is being conducted by the weather authorities to create artificial rain. The
project, which began in July 2010 and cost US$11 million, has been successful in creating rain
storms in the Dubai and Abu Dhabi deserts.
The UAE has an arid climate with less than 100mm per year of rainfall, a high evaporation rate of
surface water and a low groundwater recharge rate. Although rainfall in the UAE has been
fluctuating over the last few decades in winter season, most of that occurs in the December to
March period. During the summer months, the prevailing Indian Monsoon drought effect leads to a
build-up of cumulus clouds especially along the mountainous terrain in the eastern UAE.
The UAE cloud-seeding Program was initiated in the late 1990s. By early 2001 the Program was
being conducted in cooperation with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in
Colorado, USA, the Witwatersrand University in South Africa and the US Space Agency, NASA.
In 2005, the UAE launched the UAE Prize for Excellence in Advancing the Science and Practice of
Weather Modification in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This
prize was thereafter reshaped into the International Research Program for Rain Enhancement
Science.
It subsequently became the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science in January
2015. The Program for Rain Enhancement Science is an initiative of the United Arab Emirates
Ministry of Presidential Affairs. It is overseen by the UAE National Center of Meteorology &
Seismology (NCMS) based in Abu Dhabi. Among its key goals are advancing the science,
technology and implementation of rain enhancement and encouraging additional investments in
research funding and research partnerships to advance the field, increasing rainfall and ensuring
water security globally.
The UAE now has more 75 networked automatic weather stations distributed across the UAE, 7 air
quality stations, a sophisticated Doppler weather radar network of five stationary and one mobile
radar, and six Beechcraft King Air C90 aircraft for cloud seeding operations. Natural salts such as
potassium chloride and sodium chlorid are used in these operations. At present, the UAE mostly
seed with salt particles in the eastern mountains on the border to Oman to raise levels in aquifers
and reservoirs.
Forecasters and scientists have estimated that cloud seeding operations can enhance rainfall by as
much as 30 to 35 per cent in a clear atmosphere, and by up to 10 to 15 per cent in a turbid
atmosphere.
A total of 187 missions were sent to seed clouds in the UAE in 2015, with each aircraft taking about
three hours to target five to six clouds at a cost of $3,000 per operation.
A cloud seeding experiment in January 2020 resulted in flooding.

Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, open-burning haze pollutes the regional environment. Cloud seeding has been
used to improve the air quality by encouraging rainfall.
On 20 June 2013, Indonesia said it will begin cloud-seeding operations following reports from
Singapore and Malaysia that smog caused by forest and bush fires in Sumatra have disrupted daily
activities in the neighboring countries. On 25 June 2013, hailstones were reported to have fallen
over some parts of Singapore. Despite NEA denials, some believe that the hailstones are the result
of cloud seeding in Indonesia.
In 2015 cloud seeding was done daily in Malaysia since the haze began in early-August.
Thailand started a rain-making project in the late-1950s, known today as the Royal Rainmaking
Project. Its first efforts scattered sea salt in the air to catch the humidity and dry ice to condense the
humidity to form clouds. The project took about ten years of experiments and refinement. The first
field operations began in 1969 above Khao Yai National Park. Since then the Thai government
claims that rainmaking has been successfully applied throughout Thailand and neighboring
countries. On 12 October 2005 the European Patent Office granted to King Bhumibol Adulyadej the
patent EP 1 491 088 Weather modification by royal rainmaking technology. The budget of the
Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation in FY2019 was 2,224 million baht.

Sri Lanka
Cloud seeding was used due to the low amount of rain causing low power generation from hydro in
March 2019.

North America
United States
In the United States, cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought,
to reduce the size of hailstones that form in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and
around airports. In the summer of 1948, the usually humid city of Alexandria, Louisiana, under
Mayor Carl B. Close, seeded a cloud with dry ice at the municipal airport during a drought; quickly
0.85 inches of rainfall occurred.
Cloud seeding is occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states
and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs. In
January 2006, an $8.8 million cloud seeding project began in Wyoming to examine the effects of
cloud seeding on snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain
ranges.
In Oregon, Hood River seeding was used by Portland General Electric to produce snow for hydro
power in 1974-1975. The results were substantial, but caused an undue burden on the locals who
experienced overpowering rainfall causing street collapses and mud slides. PGE discontinued its
seeding practices the following year.
The US signed the Environmental Modification Convention in 1978 which banned the use of
weather modification for hostile purposes.

Canada
During the sixties, Irving P. Krick & Associates operated a successful cloud seeding operation in the
area around Calgary, Alberta. This utilized both aircraft and ground-based generators that pumped
silver iodide into the atmosphere in an attempt to reduce the threat of hail damage. Ralph
Langeman, Lynn Garrison, and Stan McLeod, all ex-members of the RCAF's 403 Squadron,
attending the University of Alberta, spent their summers flying hail suppression. The Alberta Hail
Suppression Project is continuing with C$3 million a year in funding from insurance companies to
reduce hail damage in southern Alberta.

Europe
Bulgaria
Bulgaria operates a national network of hail protection, silver iodide rocket sites, strategically
located in agricultural areas such as the rose valley. Each site protects an area of 10 sq. km, the
density of the site clusters is such that at least 2 sites will be able to target a single hail cloud, initial
detection of hail cloud formation to firing of the rockets is typically 7–10 minutes in its entire
process with a view to seed the formation of much smaller hailstones, high in the atmosphere that
will melt before reaching ground level.
Data collated since the 1960s suggests huge agricultural sector losses are avoided yearly with the
protection system, unseeded the hail will flatten entire regions, with seeding this can be reduced to
minor leaf damage from the smaller hailstones that failed to melt.

France and Spain

Cloud seeding began in France during the 1950s with the intent of reducing hail damage to crops.
The ANELFA project consists of local agencies acting within a non-profit organization. A similar
project in Spain is managed by the Consorcio por la Lucha Antigranizo de Aragon.The success of
the French program was supported by analysis made by Jean Dessens based on insurance data; that
of the Spanish program in studies conducted by the Spanish Agricultural Ministry. However, Jean
Dessens's results were heavily criticized and doubt was cast on the effectiveness of ground
generator seeding.

Russia
The Soviet Union created a specifically designed version of the Antonov An-30 aerial survey
aircraft, the An-30M Sky Cleaner, with eight containers of solid carbon dioxide in the cargo area
plus external pods containing meteorological cartridges that could be fired into clouds. Soviet
military pilots seeded clouds over the Belorussian SSR after theChernobyl disaster to remove
radioactive particles from clouds heading toward Moscow. Currently, An-26 is also used for cloud
seeding. At the July 2006 G8Summit in St. Petersburg, President Putin commented that air force jets
had been deployed to seed incoming clouds so they rained over Finland. Rain drenched the summit
anyway. In Moscow, the Russian Airforce tried seeding clouds with bags of cement on June 17,
2008. One of the bags did not pulverize and went through the roof of a house. In October 2009, the
Mayor of Moscow promised a "winter without snow" for the city after revealing efforts by the
Russian Air Force to seed the clouds upwind from Moscow throughout the winter.

Germany
In Germany civic engagement societies organize cloud seeding on a region level. A registered
society maintains aircraft for cloud seeding to protect agricultural areas from hail in the district
Rosenheim, the district Miesbach, the district Traunstein (all located in southern Bavaria, Germany)
and the district Kufstein (located in Tyrol, Austria).
Cloud seeding is also used in Baden-Württemberg, a federal state particularly known for its
winegrowing culture. The districts of Ludwigsburg, Heilbronn, Schwarzwald-Baar and Rems-Murr,
as well as the cities Stuttgart and Esslingen participate in a program to prevent the formation of
hailstones. Reports from a local insurance agency suggest that the cloud seeding activities in the
Stuttgart area have prevented about 5 million euro in damages in 2015 while the project's annual
upkeep is priced at only 325.000 euro. Another society for cloud seeding operates in the district of
Villingen-Schwenningen.

Slovenia
In Slovenia oldest aeroclub: Letalski center Maribor carries air defense against hail. The Cessna 206
is equipped with external aggregates and flares for flying. The purpose of the defense is to prevent
damage to farmland and cities. They have been carrying out defense since 1983. Silver iodide is
used as a reagent. The base is at Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport.

United Kingdom
Project Cumulus was a UK government initiative to investigate weather manipulation, in particular
through cloud seeding experiments, operational between 1949 and 1952. A conspiracy theory has
circulated that the Lynmouth flood of 1952 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 preposterous to blame the Lynmouth flood on such experiments".

Australia
In Australia, summer activities of CSIRO and Hydro Tasmania over central and western Tasmania
between the 1960s and the present day appear to have been successful. Seeding over the Hydro-
Electricity Commission catchment area on the Central Plateau achieved rainfall increases as high as
30 percent in autumn. The Tasmanian experiments were so successful that the Commission has
regularly undertaken seeding ever since in mountainous parts of the State.
In 2004, Snowy Hydro Limited began a trial of cloud seeding to assess the feasibility of increasing
snow precipitation in the Snowy Mountains in Australia. The test period, originally scheduled to
end in 2009, was later extended to 2014. The New South Wales (NSW) Natural Resources
Commission, responsible for supervising the cloud seeding operations, believes that the trial may
have difficulty establishing statistically whether cloud seeding operations are increasing snowfall.
This project was discussed at a summit in Narrabri, NSW on 1 December 2006. The summit met
with the intention of outlining a proposal for a 5-year trial, focusing on Northern NSW.
The various implications of such a widespread trial were discussed, drawing on the combined
knowledge of several worldwide experts, including representatives from the Tasmanian Hydro
Cloud Seeding Project however does not make reference to former cloud seeding experiments by
the then-Snowy Mountains Authority, which rejected weather modification. The trial required
changes to NSW environmental legislation in order to facilitate placement of the cloud seeding
apparatus. The modern experiment is not supported for the Australian Alps.
In December 2006, the Queensland government of Australia announced a $ 7.6 million in funding
for "warm cloud" seeding research to be conducted jointly by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
and the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research. Outcomes of the study are hoped
to ease continuing drought conditions in the states South East region.
In March 2020, scientists from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science Centre and Southern Cross
University trialled marine cloud seeding off the coast of Queensland, Australia, with the aim to
protect Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching and dieoff during marine heatwaves. Using two
high-pressure turbines, the team sprayed microscopic droplets of saltwater into the air. These then
evaporate leaving behind very small salt crystals, which water vapour clings to, creating clouds that
reflect the sun more effectively.

Africa
In Mali and Niger, cloud seeding is also used on a national scale.
In 1985 the Moroccan Government started with a Cloud seeding program called 'Al-Ghait'. The
system was first used in Morocco in 1999; it has also been used between 1999 and 2002 in Burkina
Faso and from 2005 in Senegal. For this program two aircraft were equipped with special
instruments:
An unknown Beech King Air; which holds cloud physics and seeding equipment RMAF's Alpha Jet
No 245; which only holds the seeding equipment.