Drive cloud to earth 1

[adavidi]

Hi,
Question from meteorologist point of view:
Is it possible to drive cloud down to earth?
Thanks, Aharon

 

[Hush]

Not my field but I'd say you'd have to make it heavier (cool it) or decrease its volume (condense it). Since cooling seems impracticle condensation using silver iodide crystals or some other fine particle would be the obvious answer. Alberta & Montana governments did a fair amount of research on this back in the 70's.

 

[adavidi]

Hi Hush,
Thanks for your replay.
Do you have any data regarding Alberta & Montana governments on their research?

Aharon

 

[Hush]

I'm not sure if it was a joint project or they were just exchanging data. There was also some involvement from other states. The Alberta end was run by the Alberta Research Council. What they were doing was trying to seed severe storm cells and have them drop their moisture before hail developed by dumping various compounds in the centre of the cell by air. Needless to say it was a fairly dangerous and costly operation. Don't know how much success they ever had.

 

[adavidi]

Thanks Hush,
In case you will find further data about this subject, please send it to:
aharon_davidi@hotmail.com

Thanks,
Aharon

 

[gbent]

Mother nature drives clouds to ground frequently. We call it fog. Western Kansas has (or has had) a cloud seeding program for several years. I think some counties pulled out of the project in 2001. The stated goal was reducing the amount of hail losses, but there was some question of it's effectiveness. I don't know where to look for information, I only recall some local newspaper stories.