cloud seeding

noun

1. any technique of adding material to a cloud to alter its natural development, usually to increase or obtain precipitation.

cloud seeding

1. A method of making a cloud give up its moisture as rain, especially by releasing particles of dry ice or silver iodide into cold clouds. Dry ice freezes water droplets in the cloud, turning them into nuclei for the formation of raindrops. Silver iodide particles are used because they have a crystal structure similar to ice and can also serve as nuclei for raindrop formation.

cloud seeding

1. A technique for producing rain by dropping chemicals or small objects into clouds.

Word History and Origins

Origin of cloud seeding¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

The EPA website notes that there is a distinction between geoengineering, which involves a broad range of activities designed to modify global temperatures, and weather modification techniques such as cloud seeding, which are generally short-lived and localized.

From Los Angeles Times

“The biggest and best cloud seeding operations we’ve seen to date have produced tens of millions — and maximally like 100 million — gallons of precipitation,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times

“We saw in excess of a trillion gallons of precipitation from that flood. Not only could cloud seeding not have caused this, but the aerosols that we dispersed days prior could not have persisted in the atmosphere long enough to have had any consequence on the storm.”

From Los Angeles Times

Indeed, Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, has gone so far as to call cloud seeding a scam — in part because it can prey on farmers and other people who are desperate for rain, and because it typically delivers only modest results, he said.

From Los Angeles Times

“There’s no physical way that cloud seeding could have made the Texas storm,” Dessler said, noting that the storm was fueled by extremely high levels of atmospheric water that stemmed from a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico.

From Los Angeles Times