Artificial rain

[tarak]

How effective are artificial rains???It has become commonplace in several countries to seed the clouds for rains using chemicals which act as nuclei for water vapour condensation in a small area. If used repeatedly it should certainly have effects on the natural climate of the region.Chemists do you have any views on this????

[Tim_Lou]

i dont think it would work for cooling the climate though...
even if the rain cools the earth, the heat generated when producting such rain would outweigh its cooling affect, according to thermodynamics.

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Tim_Lou

i dont think it would work for cooling the climate though...

Correct on the overall scale. It can certainly make a difference to single areas.

[jandek]

Dear Tarak,

Why do you assume that artificial rain can only be made with chemicals ?.
It is possible to create rain in quantities you can't imagine in a pure natural way.
Rain is evaporated (sea) water reaching in certain periods and circumstances concentrations of moisture in the air ultimately resulting in rain.
What about artificially increasing evaporation by means nature delivers and order your quantity of rain to be delivered where and when you want it.

Sounds weird , but I dare to state that I can do it.

[tarak]

Originally Posted by jandek

Dear Tarak,

Why do you assume that artificial rain can only be made with chemicals ?.
It is possible to create rain in quantities you can't imagine in a pure natural way.
Rain is evaporated (sea) water reaching in certain periods and circumstances concentrations of moisture in the air ultimately resulting in rain.
What about artificially increasing evaporation by means nature delivers and order your quantity of rain to be delivered where and when you want it.

Sounds weird , but I dare to state that I can do it.

Then you have saved the world.Sounds really interesting,please do enlighten us on this.If anybody can do this half the problems in the third world are solved.Rain on order....

[jandek]

Tarak,

There is obviously a economic stake around this topic but I will give you some hints;

I developed a system to produce fresh water out of seawater with solar energy.
Look at the website http://www.zonnewater.net also there I make statements violating scientifical rules but the system is there and it works.
Only by analysing the info given there you will conclude that the things mentioned earlier make sense.

It is not very likely that I get the idea around making rain patented so I need to sort out how to get some return from a couple of years thinking.

[tarak]

Originally Posted by jandek

Tarak,

There is obviously a economic stake around this topic but I will give you some hints;

I developed a system to produce fresh water out of seawater with solar energy.
Look at the website http://www.zonnewater.net also there I make statements violating scientifical rules but the system is there and it works.
Only by analysing the info given there you will conclude that the things mentioned earlier make sense.

It is not very likely that I get the idea around making rain patented so I need to sort out how to get some return from a couple of years thinking.

water,water everywhere ,not a drop to drink
Yheh there is water on this planet and it has to delivered where it is needed.thats a challenge.I hope you have a viable technology

[Geoman]

To Jandek:

You cannot violate the rules of science (nature) - in technology the best you can hope for is to approach their optimal application. But good luck with that! You are embarking on a worthwhile mission.

[Geoman]

To Tarak:

Artificial rain is not really that effective and also not very well controllable. It has been applied successfully in isolated instances - and in China it did help to locally ease the effects of devastating droughts. However, there is no change in the long term weather patterns or climate. That has a number of reasons. Rain is not just over-saturated air out of which the water falls just like that. The process that leads to rain is fantastically complicated geochemistry. It can happen that you get 100% humidity but still: no rain. When the temperature drops you only get over saturated air and fog, yet still: no rain. And even if enough surface water is available, nothing happens. Only the evaporation stops. What you need is something to jumpstart the process. Silver Iodine is one possibility to artificially create condensation seeds, but then one constantly has to fly around with airplanes and mass-spray the atmosphere with silver iodine, which is not really that clever a solution.

If we look at regions with ample rainfall - what do we find? We find a lot of biological activity. We find a lot of wind over the sea. Complex biochemical reaction networks in combination with evaporation and wind transport a large number of compounds into the atmosphere, where they begin to react with each other and the atmospheric compounds. I quote from http://www.bulkmsm.com/research/msm/page26.htm:

"Chemical change in the atmosphere is driven largely by reactions of photo chemically generated free radicals. Sophisticated experimental techniques are required to quantitatively characterize important atmospheric photochemical processes as well as the kinetics and mechanisms of the fast free radical reactions that result. In our laboratory, laser flash photolysis and fast flow techniques are employed to generate reactive intermediates of interest, and a variety of optical and mass spectrometric techniques are employed to probe the evolution of reactants and products. The experimental results provide needed input into models of atmospheric transport and chemical transformation that are employed to understand phenomena such as global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, urban air quality, and acid precipitation. Results of our studies also provide fundamental information that is useful for establishing free radical thermo chemistry and for refining reaction rate theories. We are interested in gas-phase chemistry as well as chemistry that occurs in the atmospheric condensed phase, i.e., on the surfaces or in the bulk of cloud droplets and/or aerosol particles."

This gives an idea of where we are standing on the issue. We only begin to understand the mechanisms leading to rain. So-called artificial rain is at this stage a science fiction idea. The impact of seeded rain is short living because the general conditions responsible for the drought do not change. The entire landscape would need to be changed - wasteland would need to be re-forested etc. A long and painful process.

[learnin to learn]

Originally Posted by Geoman

"Chemical change in the atmosphere is driven largely by reactions of photo chemically generated free radicals. Sophisticated experimental techniques are required to quantitatively characterize important atmospheric photochemical processes as well as the kinetics and mechanisms of the fast free radical reactions that result. In our laboratory, laser flash photolysis and fast flow techniques are employed to generate reactive intermediates of interest, and a variety of optical and mass spectrometric techniques are employed to probe the evolution of reactants and products. The experimental results provide needed input into models of atmospheric transport and chemical transformation that are employed to understand phenomena such as global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, urban air quality, and acid precipitation. Results of our studies also provide fundamental information that is useful for establishing free radical thermo chemistry and for refining reaction rate theories. We are interested in gas-phase chemistry as well as chemistry that occurs in the atmospheric condensed phase, i.e., on the surfaces or in the bulk of cloud droplets and/or aerosol particles."

This gives an idea of where we are standing on the issue. We only begin to understand the mechanisms leading to rain. So-called artificial rain is at this stage a science fiction idea. The impact of seeded rain is short living because the general conditions responsible for the drought do not change. The entire landscape would need to be changed - wasteland would need to be re-forested etc. A long and painful process.

So artificial rain is'nt realistically possible?