Decryp’Terre: Here are the technologies used to modify the climate

What technologies are used to artificially modify the climate?

Most popular: cloud seeding

According to the World Meteorological Organization … the most used method is cloud seeding. This method can change the amount or type of rain generated by clouds. How it works ? This method involves injecting substances such as silver iodide into the clouds. These facilitate the formation of ice crystals in the cloud … These crystals then turn into hailstones, and when they are very heavy they fall from the cloud and when they pass through milder air they turn into rain.

There are two ways of throwing particles into clouds: by cannons on the ground that spray particles toward clouds, or via planes that dump particles as they pass over the clouds;

Before the start of the 2018 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese authorities used this technique to reduce rain before the events began. Allowing the sky to clean up afterwards

The goal above all is to make the rain fall where it is needed. What in a few years could be a solution against drought in certain regions of the world.

Electric shocks to generate rain

Another technology was also developed by the United Arab Emirates…. electric shocks; Airplane flying in the sky and launching drones in the clouds. These drones deliver electric shocks… In this way, the water droplets inside are forced to pool together to form droplets large and heavy enough to fall to the ground without evaporating as they descend.

This technology was developed to fight heat but also against drought… It is very hot in Dubai, usually over 50 degrees in summer.

>> Video: Dubai is causing rain with drones

solar geoengineering

There is also solar geoengineering which is still in the hypothetical stage. This method consists in artificially reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth … One technique is to inject a precise dose of sulfur dioxide into the middle or upper atmosphere of the Earth … In this way we can artificially condense the layer of aerosol particles that reflects the light …. And by reflecting the rays, we will reduce the risks of the greenhouse effect.

This technique is inspired by what we observe in nature…. In particular, volcanic eruptions that, by rejecting particles, contributed to a temporary cooling of the surface.

Climate modification: differentiated methods of success.

Electric shock technology developed by the United Arab Emirates cannot predict the intensity of rain… The highways around Dubai have been flooded, traffic has been disrupted and some drivers are frightened, because they have never driven in the blurring rain.

In 2009, the method of cloud seeding went wrong in China, as it began to snow over Beijing and neighboring provinces … The early snowfall surprised residents, causing traffic accidents and installing many aircraft on the ground.

Finally, in an open letter published in early 2022, dozens of environmental scientists denounced the dangers that solar geoengineering could pose to humans and the climate.

Rhetoric and incidents do not prevent these countries and many others, such as the United States, from continuing their experiences.

>> Read also: New IPCC report: Here are 5 things to remember