My husband and I were discussing Paul McCartney’s request to salt the clouds so it won’t rain on his Russian concert (pompous fuck that he is…). Mr. K said he’d never heard of salting them to STOP the rain; he heard that people had tried it years ago to make rain in dry regions. I told him the Russkies have been doing it for decades to ensure good weather for their May Day celebration.
So…are there two ways to manipulate the weather? What do they use for each result? Does either technique work?
The cloud seeding technique only encourages it to rain. However, to ensure it stays dry over the desired region, they seed the cloud well before it reaches there. Much of the water is knocked out of the cloud, so by the time it reaches Paul McCartney there is no longer enough moisture in the air for raindrops to condense.
It was my understanding, although there is a lot of claimed success in cloud seeding, that there was no hard evithat it actually works; chiefly because setting up a controlled study is difficult. Does anyone have any actual scientific data on the validity/effectiveness of cloud seeding?
No actual data, but in the area of Alberta where my grandparents homesteaded, when cloud seeding started happening dcades ago, they ended up with hail all the time, whereas they practically never had before - in that location. Could be coincidence or an effect.