Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Someone suggests "seeding clouds" to make it rain in Australia. How effective is seeding clouds? Does it always produce RAIN?
While true we do have cloudless days we also have days where there are bazillions of white puffy clouds. Jim's favorite kind of sky. So if you need clouds and we have clouds why not seed those clouds when they appear? Thank you for your reply E and Happy Monday to thee! :)
Cloud seeding isn't an exact science. While providing extra nuclei for water to condense around (nucleation), it requires certain parameters to be met in order for it to work. The main one being available moisture. Currently, there is very low humidity over Australia (fire areas). This means no clouds (clouds are visible water vapor - like the steam above a boiling a kettle).
Cloud seeding can produce rain or snow depending on the air and ground lever temperatures (it's just not going to snow at 100 F). Cloud seeding works even better where there's orographic lifting (mountain slope - windward side).
Sea water is not used due to its salinity. Mostly because it will prevent vegetation from regrowing (salt severely damages or even destroys an ecosystem). Once soil is salted, it can take years for it to leach out. Salt also corrodes fire fighting equipment (much like it does cars around the ocean and in areas that use salt on roads as ice melt in the winter).
Thank you for a very thoughtful helpful and informative reply Shuhak. So can we manufacture clouds by moisturizing the skies? Flying up high and spraying water? I know that's probably a really DUMB thing to ask but can ya? :)
Oh that's what those white thingies trailing in the skies are called? CONTRAILS? I did not know that! Thank you for the info Shuhak. Geez the more I hang out here the more I learn. Ain't that a pip?
I see planes do that over fires E. They spray some kinda red stuff which I presume is FIRE RETARDANT and they make many flyovers and spray and spray. How much it helps I cannot say and do not know. Thank you for your reply! :)
Fire retardant is made up mostly of water; the rest is organic phosphates and red dye (so it can be seen from the air). Once these chemicals are dropped, they crate a reaction making the stuff they land on less likely to combust (whether they are on fire or not). The retardant is meant to be biodegradable. Although I've seen it dropped on horses, it can make it hard to breathe
I live near a large Cal Fire air base. Watching the air tankers take off, land and reload is an amazing sight. They land, load, and take off in 5-7 minutes. Every year they truck in pallets of large bags of dry retardant. The retardant is mixed with water and stored in underground tanks. Just before a tanker lands, a ground grew goes out and readies everything. The tankers land, and quickly position themselves over the tanks. The ground crew quickly hooks up large hoses, fills up the tanker (retardant and fuel), and then get out of the way. Once the air tankers are gone, the crew loads 1-2 bags of retardant into a hopper, turn on the water and mixes them into the underground tanks. Then they wait until the tanker radios that it's on it's way back for a reload, and start all over again. This airbase can reload up to 4 S-2D tankers at a time (peak output of retardant is 120,000 gal/day). If there's a fire anywhere in the northstate, this base is in full operation.
This post was edited by Shuhak at January 7, 2020 6:31 AM MST
Wow! All of that Shuhak? It's a lot more complex than just a plane flying over the air spraying red stuff. Thank you for your very helpful and informative reply! :)
Element 99 