Following last year's record Wildfire Season,Canada Hotter weather is coming this summer and the imminent The risk of “destructive” forest fires.
According to government officials, rain this month could be crucial to firefighting efforts. But what about cloud seeding?
Artificial rainfallInducing precipitation through human intervention is an ancient method, but it is still being developed and explored.
Some experts say it has the potential to mitigate wildfires, but more research is needed to assess whether it would be feasible and effective in the future.
“Cloud seeding was a very interesting topic in the 1960s and 1970s, but then it faded away,” said Zamin Kanji, an expert in atmospheric physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
“Now it’s becoming important again in terms of climate, water research and rainfall enhancement,” he told Global News.
“So I think there’s potential there, a lot of potential.”
Artificial rainfall technology was invented in the 1940s and has been used around the world to artificially change the weather.
Emails needed on the day
Top news from Canada and around the world.
Dozens of countries have adopted this approach to create or even prevent rain and snow and control the Earth's temperature.
In Canada, artificial rainfall Used for hail suppression only in Alberta.
Kanji said there are basically two ways of artificial rainfall enhancement: warm cloud artificial rainfall enhancement and cold cloud artificial rainfall enhancement.
In warm cloud seeding, the idea is to inject aerosol particles (usually less than one micron in diameter) into the atmosphere to form cloud droplets, which eventually grow large enough to effectively collide with other droplets, become precipitation-sized droplets, and then fall as rain.
As for cold cloud seeding, aerosol particles that can effectively form ice crystals are injected into clouds that are below zero degrees, called “supercooled clouds.”
“If you inject these particles into supercooled clouds, you artificially enhance ice formation, and then form large enough ice crystals that precipitate out of the clouds, melt, and fall as raindrops,” Kanji explains.
Roelof Berg, professor of environmental science and management at North-West University in South Africa, said substances such as silver iodide, table salt or potassium chloride could be used in these processes.
Humans could inject the substance into clouds by spraying it from airplanes or drones, or by firing particles from the ground using cannons.
Can cloud seeding effectively extinguish wildfires?
Some countries have tried using cloud seeding to fight wildfires.
In the United States, the technology was tested in the 1950s as part of the experimental Project Skyfire program.
Russia last used this method to put out forest fires in Siberia in 2020 and 2021.
Berg said the “jury is still out” on how effectively this approach could increase rainfall, and that the research is “in its infancy” in the context of wildfires.
“There’s still a lot of work to do to convince everyone that this is possible,” he said.
In theory, cold cloud seeding could be applied in wildfire areas if clouds are supercooled to enhance precipitation formation through the ice phase, Kanji said.
“I think if it's found to be an effective tool for enhancing precipitation for wildfires, then I think it could be used in Canada and it could be used elsewhere,” he said.
But Kanji added that there is “significant uncertainty” in this approach because overseeding could have the opposite effect.
“If you inject too many of these particles, you’ll either form a lot of very small droplets that won’t grow large enough to fall as rain, or you’ll form a lot of very small ice crystals that won’t grow large enough to fall as precipitation, like snow or rain,” he said.
Nicole Allen, a spokeswoman for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said only one company, Weather Modification Inc., has reported conducting weather modification activities using cloud observations in Canada since 1996. The company operates a hail suppression project in Alberta.
“To reduce damage from hail, the company introduces an ice accelerator, silver iodide, during some thunderstorms in the Calgary-Red Deer area between May and September each year,” Allen told Global News.
So far this year, there have been 1,483 wildfires in Canada, burning about 516,980 hectares of land. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
— With files from Nathaniel Dove of Global News and Reuters.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
