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Cloud Seeding for Rain Enhancement Drought Vol-1, Issue-12, November 15-30, 2015 Geography and You Free Copy geography CLIMATEandyou.com A FORTnigHTLY ONLinE MagaZinE ON WEATHER, WATER AND HAZARDS DROUGHT MITIGATION ■ Cloud Seeding for Rain Enhancement ■ Drought Mitigation ■ Agro-Met Advisories ■ News Updates G'nY CLIMATE November 15-30, 2015 ● Volume 1 ● Issue 12 1 Be a WeaTHer CLIMATE A fortnightly online magazine on weather, water and hazards journalist Volume 1 • Issue 12 • November 2015 FREE COPY Advisor Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Dr. Ajit Tyagi, Former Director General, India Meteorological Department No weather Editor event is Sulagna Chattopadhyay too small Legal Advisor or too large Krishnendu Datta Correspondence/Editorial Office REPORT NOW 1584, B-1, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi-110070 Now you can Phone: 011-26122789 put all the idle weather talk For G'nY subscriptions, renewals, to good use. enquiries please contact: Calling all, Circulation Manager professionals E-mail: [email protected] and amateurs to Please visit our site at report about any www.geographyandyou.com for weather event further information. that they find unusual. ©IRIS Publication Pvt. Ltd. Weather All rights reserved throughout the events such world. Reproduction in any manner, as lightning, part or whole, is prohibited. Printed, cloud, hailstorm, published and owned by Sulagna flooding, etc., Chattopadhyay. are of special interest to us. Research Credit You may capture LIGHTS (Learning in Geography, short videos on Humanities, Technology and Science) your phone and a not-for-profit research foundation send it to us too. Business Development Office Photographers A 216-217, Somdatt Chambers-1, are especially welcome. Bikaji Cama Place, New Delhi -110066 Phone: +91-11-41551436, There are PRIZES +91-11-41551848. too. For the best entry in reporting, Published at an award of Rs IRIS Publication Pvt. Ltd. Geography 1000 is offered. and You does not take any The report will be responsibility for returning unsolicited published in G'nY publication material. CLIMATE. For the best photograph All disputes are subjected to the exclusive a cash prize of jurisdiction of competent courts and forums Rs 500 is offered, in Delhi/New Delhi only. which will be printed in G'nY. For queries write to editor@ geographyandyou.com Advisor's Desk Dear readers, Monsoon rainfall is known to exhibit inter annual variability. On an average one year out Contents of five years, all India below normal rainfall is deficient resulting in conditions of drought in many states of the country. Monsoon also Feature exhibits wide spatial variability causing deficient rainfall and drought in some parts of the country even in the years 4 Cloud Seeding for Rain of normal monsoon. Agriculture in about 60% of the area Enhancement othe country is rain fed where impact of deficient rainfall is felt acutely. Many parts of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra - Dr. J. R. Kulkarni Pradesh and Karnataka are reeling under drought this year. Even in irrigated states like Uttar Pradesh, has declared 6 Cloud Seeding to Mitigate drought because of large deficiency of rainfall. Therefore management of drought continues to be major challenge for Deficit Rainfall Over Indian the country. Peninsula - Wing Commander Unlike drought prior to sixties, where there used to be food riots and thousands of people used to die because G.S.R. Sarma of starvation, buffer stock of wheat and rice and rural employment schemes have been able to save lives. At the 8 Drought Mitigation same time, suicide by famers has posed new challenge to - Dr. R. V. Sharma develop new mitigation strategies. It is fact that to a farmer forecast of all India seasonal rainfall is not much of help. 9 Agro-Met Advisories What he needs is advisories specific to his area and crops. As on date scientifically it not feasible to provide useful - N. Chattopadhyay & L.S. Rathore long range forecast the local level. Recent developments in extended range ( two to three weeks) hold promise but 12 Atmospheric Phenomena: may take some more time before these could be put to Cirrocumulus clouds operational use at district level. Ministry of Agriculture has District Contingency Plans, which needs to be implemented 13 News Updates on ground in a proactive manner rather than in reactive mode after monsoon season in terms of drought relief. 13 Conference Alert Drought monitoring and prediction on weekly basis needs to incorporated in contingency plans in dynamic manner. Five day Agromet Advisories issued by Agriculture Universities/ ICAR institutions based on forecasts provided by IMD have been found helpful in taking timely remedial measures. This issue includes detailed report on Agromet Advisories provided during Monsoon 2015. IMD may consider extending the period of Agromet Advisories to 7 to 10 days from existing 5 days to be more useful farmers. As a desperate measure to mitigate adverse effects of deficient rainfall in their state carry out cloud seeding for rain enhancement. There is not much of awareness about science and operations of cloud seeding. This issue has three articles on cloud seeding from scientists, who have been associated with scientific as well as commercial operations of cloud seeding in the country. Dr. Ajit Tyagi Source: http://indianexpress.com/ G'nY CLIMATE November 15-30, 2015 ● Volume 1 ● Issue 12 3 World CLOUD SEEDING FOR RAIN ENHANCEMENT loud seeding is a technique used to accelerate the auto- coalescence , as shown in figure 1. A large drop while falling collides conversion of cloud water to raindrops in convective clouds.. with smaller drops and in the process it collects and absorbs smaller Based on the temperatures of the base and top of the cloud, drops, growing in size. In cold clouds, super- cooled water (water Cclouds may be classified as warm, cold and mixed phase clouds. The with temperatures below 00C) and ice particles coexist. As the temperature of the atmosphere decreases by approximately 5 to 60 saturation vapour pressure over ice is lower than that of water, super- per km in the vertical. In the tropics, the level at which temperature cooled water drops evaporate and the water vapour condenses over is 00 degree centigrade occurs at about 4-5 km above sea level. This ice particles. In the process, ice particles grow in size at the expense level is termed as freezing level. The clouds whose tops are below of super cooled cloud water (figure 2). This is known as Bergeron freezing level are termed warm clouds. In mid-latitude regions, in process. After becoming sufficiently large, these ice particles fall winter conditions, the freezing level is at the surface. The clouds under gravity. Below freezing level, these melt and become raindrops. formed in such conditions are called cold clouds. When the clouds Hygroscopic particles like sodium chloride (common salt) have an have base temperatures above 00C and tops are above freezing level affinity towards water. When these particles are injected in to warm , they are called mixed-phase clouds. In the monsoon season, both clouds, they become the nuclei around which cloud drops form. warm and mixed phase clouds exist over India. Cloud drops grow quickly initially by absorbing the water vapour into the clouds and later grow by the collision-coalescence process. RAINFALL PROCESS Climate Silver Iodide (AgI) particles have a structure similar to that of ice IN WARM, COLD crystals. These act as nuclei for the formation of ice particles in the AND MIXED-PHASE super cooled region of the cold or mixed-phase clouds. Hence, AgI CLOUDS particles are spread in such clouds to accelerate the Bergeron process. Cloud drops are of few History of Cloud seeding experiments in the world and India microns (micrometres) in size. Arain drop is typically The first cloud seeding experiment was performed in the USA by of mm size. Millions of Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir in 1946 . They spread dry ice cloud drops are required on a cloud and found that the cloud started precipitating after 20 to join together to form a minutes (Figure 3). Within a month, Schaefer's colleague, the noted single raindrop. In warm atmospheric scientist Dr. Bernard Vonnegut discovered that AgI can clouds, the rainfall process be used for cloud seeding in cold clouds (figure 4). Since then, many Fig. 1: Growth of cloud droplet by colli- is governed by collision and such experiments have been performed all over the world. In India, sion- coalescence process in warm clouds Fig. 2: Growth of ice crystals in cold clouds by Bergeron process. Fig. 3: First cloud seeding experiment in 1946. Dry ice was spread on the cloud deck. The clear portion in the figure shows that part of the cloud Fig. 4: Scientists Schaefer, Langmuir and Vonnegut who laid the founda- converted in to rain. tion of cloud seeding. 4 November 15-30, 2015 ● Volume 1 ● Issue 12 G'nY CLIMATE the first cloud seeding experiment was performed done in 1951 over SOME GENERAL COMMENTS the Western Ghats using salt powder. In 1952, scientists from the Increase in rainfall due to cloud seeding depends on many factors India Meteorological Department (IMD) performed cloud seeding such as cloud size, liquid water content of the cloud, and prevailing experiments in Kolkata. atmospheric conditions. The seeding is done on individual cloud The Rain and Cloud Physics Research (RCPR) unit was cells. The availability of suitable clouds depends on the weather established at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi conditions. Availability of more suitable clouds ensures coverage of in 1954. RCPR performed several cloud seeding experiments over more area. north India. After the establishment of the Indian Institute Tropical Cloud seeding cannot mitigate drought conditions. However, the Climate Meteorology (IITM), Pune, the RCPR unit was transferred to IITM. small amount of timely rainfall produced through cloud seeding can IITM carried out seeding experiments over Thiruvellur, Rihand and be helpful for the survival of crops under stressed conditions.
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