Humans finally figured out how to make it rain
Cloud seeding, explained. We flew up to see it with our own eyes.
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For decades, drought-stricken areas around the world have practiced “cloud seeding,” a process where chemical flares full of silver iodide are shot into clouds to encourage them to rain. But until recently, the science didn’t quite back this practice up. In large part, that’s because operational cloud seeding programs don’t have the luxury of conducting controlled tests - they have an obligation to produce as much rain as possible for the people living under the clouds they seed.
But there’s been a new breakthrough. In 2017, a major cloud seeding experiment in the mountains of Idaho showed that cloud seeding works; shooting chemical flares into the sky does produce more precipitation.
As the world faces an increasing number of heat waves and droughts, banking water is becoming more and more important. And while we don’t know exactly how life-changing cloud seeding will turn out to be, we do know it has the potential to be a tool in our arsenal in the long battle against worsening droughts.
To understand how cloud seeding works and what it’s already doing in Texas, watch this video and take a trip up to the clouds to see it yourself.
The Future Perfect team at Vox explores big problems and the big ideas that can tackle them. Read more here: www.vox.com/future-perfect
This video was made possible by a grant from the BEMC Foundation.
Sources and further reading:
To get a deeper understanding of droughts in all their complexity, how they interact with the water cycle, and how climate change makes them worse, check out NRDC’s guide:
www.nrdc.org/stories/drought-...
To understand how tree-ring data and modern data are combined to get a better understanding of droughts over the last thousand years, check out this report:
newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/me...
To keep track of the many, severe droughts across the US, you can use the US Drought Monitor:
droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Curren...
To read about Texas’s state climate summary for 2022, click on this link:
statesummaries.ncics.org/chap....
To explore how Texas temperatures have changed over time, check out NOAA’s data here:
www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/moni...
You can check out the results of the game-changing experiment that verified cloud seeding works here:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...
To read more about the United Nation’s predictions for droughts and water shortages, check out their report here:
www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/0...
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Hello! Christina, Vox producer, here. Thanks for coming on this journey with me! As with all videos, there are always bits of information that don’t make it in. A tidbit I couldn’t include but found very interesting was that during the Vietnam War (or the American War, as they call it in Vietnam), the US secretly used cloud seeding as a weapon. Here’s a 1972 New York Times article that goes into more detail: www.nytimes.com/1972/07/03/archives/rainmaking-is-used-as-weapon-by-us-cloudseeding-in-indochina-is.html Were you familiar with cloud seeding before watching this video? Let me know in the comments!
Wow I actually had no idea about this! Thank you for informing us 🙏🏽
Operation Sober Popeye (Project Controlled Weather Popeye / Motorpool / Intermediary-Compatriot) was a military cloud-seeding project carried out by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War in 1967-1972
San Angelo is oil filed country. I'm surprised the climate change conversation did not come up in this with regards to how the region did not really benefit from the value that was pulled from the ground and then used to worsen their situation.
Hei hi yey²
That's not the only time it was 'secretly used'. It was also used by the brits to flood out german soldiers in ww2, but it was mutual destruction as it caused intense flooding for weeks
It is worrying that people who can be in denial of the human impact on climate change are also provided with tools to directly manipulate the weather.
❗‼️❗
"We need to do something, we can't just sit on our hands" - man who doesn't believe in man-made climate change
This seems like an answer to climate change.
What's more is that who cares what they think. They have a practical solution to a practical problem. Neither my beliefs nor knowledge are making carbon emissions go away anytime soon.
my thoughts exactly
Farmer: I don't believe human activity is changing the weather... I want humans to fly over my farm and change the weather.
I see what you did there. Worldwide climate is a cyclical phenomenon, it IS change. Weather is described as local and therefore a concept of micro-climates must be introduced to keep coherency. Humans don't have the ability to change climate and even with malicious efforts to shift weather on small scale the macro system will self regulate.
@@Sannidor whilst I appriciate the elementary weather/climate lesson. I am already aware of the difference, but your condescending and verbose explanation missed the point. The agricultural laborer can't see the forrest for the trees.
@@Sannidor Humans absolutely can affect climate. You truly fail to understand the scale of impact industrialization has on our environment. Humans are so capable they can actually study their own impact and our how climate is changing at artificial rate, not a natural.
Average Texas hick
@@Sannidor oh humans can definitely affect the global climate. Just look at the ppm of CO2 since the industrial era and before. Greenhouse effect is a thing.
As a researcher on this topic, what this video fails to mention is that cloud seeding REQUIRES that the water is taken from somewhere else, it only induces rain, yet doesn’t CREATE water, and is therefore not a real solution because it just causes drought in places people can’t afford cloud seeding.
Came here to say this. CIA stole weather from Cuba in the 60's to hurt it's sugar exports. Today, Saudis are zapping clouds and making it rain in the desert. Humans dun goofed the planet.
As he said it is a rain enchancer, its for more even distribution.. i thought that was obvious?
Devil's advocate here -- isn't it possible that in some cases the seeded water would have rained into the ocean, thereby escaping freshwater banks/sources until it again evaporates? When viewed from that perspective, cloud seeding is a potentially cheaper and more effective than desalination?
Capitalism of rain. U need to pay for seeding so rain goes to u otherwise everyone else takes your rain.
@@brianmadera1828 i don't think he has researched alot to be honest
Here after Dubai’s flooding
Global warming.
Texas flooding now
Forests are the most efficient sources of precipitation. Areas that were stricken with droughts and grew their forests back were able to modify rainfall patterns. But obviously you need a lot of forest. That's why its important to keep the vegetation around.
and that's why leaving bare fields of dirt to dry in winter is a bad idea
Yep, what you really want is to overall improve the ecosystem. Unfortunately cheapest way to produce anything short term is by just straight up exploitation.
Funny how 3 of the recent droughts shown in your graph occurred long before large scale CO2 production or any significant change in atmospheric CO2 levels...prior to 1950.
@@terrific804 You know droughts existed before climate change, right? Climate change isn't creating them out of thin air, just making them more common and more server. Scientists figured out that CO2 traps heat and is therefore a greenhouse gas in the 1800s. If there was no greenhouse effect then life on earth wouldn't even be possible. Farmers sometimes even add CO2 to their greenhouses in winter so they don't have to heated as much. If it works in the lab and in those greenhouses then why shouldn't it also work for the atmosphere? Also if there is no climate change then why are shipping companies planning/ already chartering shipping routes through the arctic?
@@terrific804 Coal was burnt large scale long before the 50s.
"No, humans can't possibly be causing climate change!" "Yes, of course seeding the clouds can change the weather!" How can you believe both of these things simultaneously?
The same way we can believe the planet is warming even when it's a very cold day outside. Climate isn't weather.
I know we're all pointing out the errors in some of those farmer's logic, but we shouldn't forget that they're the one's who are going to suffer the most because of it.
@@kennarajora6532 Maybe they should consider not growing a water intensive crop like cotton in an area that gets hit by severe droughts.
There's a difference between weather and climate.
@@kennarajora6532 You reap what you sow, quite literally, or rather not at all in this case. I have no sympathy, they're mostly all petty small-minded people anyways.
Doing this means reducing the rain elsewhere, important to note this. Cloud seeding might make the drought less impactful in one area but it may make it worse elsewhere
I thought this too, but other places are getting too much water now. So I see this more as redistribution.
Same here in Australia. But at the same time, it's better to a more rain than less/none...
I guess a place with over 1500mm/year is not going to notice 150mm/year drop
its a cycle... its not like the cloud is formed with set amounts of moisture... there is evaporation from areas that have adequate water supplies... so in short no... it is not keeping rain from other areas
''''@@picklesdill9138 ''''''here is evaporation from areas that have adequate water supplies'''' the Pacific ocean
remember you are not 'creating' rain by this method but prioritising one region for rain over another
Yea I'm thinking what's the Ecological impact of this? It might stop rain going to a nearby forest
For the past 5 minutes, I've been trying to figure out why I'm so bothered by the fact that some people who deny human-caused climate change recognize that climate change is real and that its effects will hurt them. I think the answer is that the same people will vote against measures to reduce carbon emissions. It's like they want protection for themselves and nobody else, so while everybody else suffers they'll be in the position to thrive and deny others their right to protection from climate change. But what they don't realize is that their selfishness will only lead to the problem becoming worse. This isn't like a natural disaster where whatever is inflicting the damage is localized. Climate change affects us all.
Humans have always been good at finding solutions to symptoms instead of solving the causes. As an environmental scientist, I’m deeply concerned about what will happen if we keep denying the fact that humanity is destroying planet earth rapidly and that we are in fact responsible for accelerating climate change.
@@TheSzyko it's not humanity, as much as it's the corporations. Blaming every day people is why nothing gets done, because you refuse to hold politicians accountable. You pick a side over feelings, and not for real change. You pick career politians, and lawyers, who are only out to fill their pockets. Stop saying it's humanity. It's literally the rich who are destroying the planet.
Explain to me why people move from cold climates to warmer ones and then complain if the temperature goes up by a degree and a half?
When the heat wave struck the UK a week or so ago, I remember seeing a lot of british people saying "I never realized how much climate change would affect me, and now i'm worried for the climate" - which really annoyed me that you had to feel the effects after it's too late to want to change anything, and only when you are personally affected - and not when you see major flooding and droughts in third world countries.
@@Artyomi one thing you guys never take into account is our information technology and how the globalists use it to brainwash us. Years ago we never used to hear heard about things from every corner of the world. Now most of the bad things are Cherry Picked because it serves big business big government and media Revenue. I stopped the Sunday paper because I was sick and tired of hearing about ferry boats in Bangladesh overturning every weekend.....
I farm in Canada. I've always feared that Montana farmers would seed their clouds before they reach the boarder and rain on me. If you cause a cloud to fall it is not falling on someone else. We are in a two year drought right now.
Can't believe this thing was tackled in comics. Concept was when you make artificial rain. You steal rain from somewhere else.
It's gonna be 1812 again
@@0Adnin Dance Powder in Alabasta
@@nathanlevesque7812 We just need Vivi to bring peace to our two worlds
@@0Adnin What comic was that? Asking for a young friend.
Are those chemicals harmful to us, plants, animals or the earth? I didn't hear anything about that at all.
They said the impact on the environment (besides making it rain of course) was negligible at one point
Yes it has to be 😮😢
They have not studied human or animal or plant impact. They anticipate that it will be minimal… so that’s reassuring 🙄
silver iodide is an extremely toxic inorganic compound.
And they use to call me a conspiracy theorist over saying they did this they finally admit it
I worry that it's a zero sum game. If people in one place practice cloud seeding, do other people down wind get less rain because there's less water in the air?
in some countries, they are used to divert rains into agricultural water reservoirs before it reaches metropolitan areas, where rains are unwelcomed
It could be used for political purposes.
This is what worries me. What happens to the farmers that are downwind? Does their drought just get worse? What about when an entire state or country does it, influencing the water availability to their neighbors? How will this impact water tables if this water never reaches them, and IDK, starves entire forests?
@@specific_pseudonym Sadly it’ll only happen if whoever is downwind, is poor
The only people down wind of West Texas, is east texas, which is humid and receives the precipitation from ocean currents. The people they are theoretically stealing from have way more than enough.
Without modifications to the extractive nature of current farming methods, this won't solve the problems. We need more no-till areas, better cover crops, and more natural areas that reinforce the natural water cycling touched on in this video. Forcing rain into an already parched landscape without fixing the issues which caused it won't be anything more than a temporary fix
Like a band aid on a gaping wound.
Cloud seeding causes its own problems. Vox forgot to "explain" that part.
@@Elevendyeleven such as?
@@Elevendyeleven such as? (©️ jrh)
I agree. It looks like the farmer tills his farmland, so the soil has likely lost its ability to hold moisture during droughts, and what little rain there is will evaporate quickly.
“The pilots fly through the clouds and leave a trail of chemicals that help form raindrops…” Conspiracy theorists: 👀
Exactly right. This was what Alex Jones was saying 15 years ago.
It's the same basic premise: Water vapor condensing around aerosols. Cloud seeding has been a thing since at least the '60s. The main difference here is that they're probably not doing it to encourage rainfall.
This. And they they have a condensed area with what they are spraying. The long term effects of it at are unknown or even if it works. Just not ok with them spraying the sky's. It can't be healthy.
But commerical airlines are not cloud seeding,.lol
Planes releasing chemicals to control the weather: 1980s: science fiction 2000s: conspiracy theory 2020s: reality
1980-2021 -chemtrails! - no no its conspirasy theory, no no they dont exist , it is just water steam line behind jet engine 2022: ...
Cloud seeding has been around since the 1940s. The conspiracy theories in the 2000s were saying jets were releasing chemicals to control people’s mind. Conspiracy theories generally aren’t that smart and never admit when they were wrong they just revise history.
You just forgot the first entry: 1960s cloud seeding technology secretly invented (Or whenever it was...)
Vietnam War: Reality
The thing that I haven’t heard discussed is the consequence of removing the water before it was going to come down. What about the region behind the seeded area? Are they getting less rain?
I can't believe this video doesn't discuss this at all, it's the fundamental problem that needs to be resolved
And it's such a logical question to ask. Which shows that they deliberately omitted to answer that
While that is definitely an issue, it may still be viable for certain regions where wind direction takes the clouds to the sea before it rains. So with cloudseeding, rain can be used for these regions without adverse effects since rain wouldnt be of use at sea, with the knowledge that I have currently
The Mexican states that are located South of Texas are deeply affected by drought, so you may be onto something
yes. it's theft.
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="71">1:11</a> please include Celsius degrees so non Americans can understand too
+ 1
-30 and divide by two is the arms length calculation otherwise google can translate it quickly to the exact number
Yes please
Yes absolutely. Vox needs to know that their audience is not only Americans.
@@rythmater I don't think so. 30 degrees celsius is hot, 54 degrees farenheit is cold.
You’re growing cotton (huge water intensity crop), in a arid semi desert environment, and have water problems….. I’m shocked that you’re shocked! I wonder if they’re also studying how they’re changing things like air moisture, effects downwind areas….
90s 'oh no they're putting chemicals in the shy' 22s 'oh ya they're putting chemicals in the sky'
but what they don’t tell you is that cloud seeding is hugely opposed by most scientists. i did a geography minor at the university of nevada, and one of the classes i took was about international water issues. the professor refused to talk about cloud seeding because she says it’s not a viable option to reduce the impact of droughts. instead, management programs are far more important. now that’s not to say everybody is on the same page when it comes to water, she had multiple guest speakers come to class with entirely opposing views when it came to solving water problems, but not one of those experts agreed with the practice of cloud seeding. also, she noted that china is the only place doing it on a large scale, and she thought that there was significant negative environmental impact.
Bernie Vonnegut, brother of Kurt, was a founding member of cloud seeding. From his experiments at GE to The DoD they tried to make this work but it simply didn't. It sometimes created floods more severe than the drought's effects. It's in a book called The Brother's Vonnegut and I recommend it. Seeding seems to have grown in understanding from what Bernie found but your comment would seem to contradict that thought. I would use the land for large greenhouses that can produce with recycled and filtered water systems, or sell it to developers who will put up mass housing for the many climate migrants who are coming and move, but the answer isn't in temporary rain events.
"she thought that there was significant negative environmental impact", Such as ? You can't leave us hanging.
@@the_crypter Primarily it deprives another area of rain instead, disrupting the water cycle and weather systems there.
@@Sam-zq4yx But in places like china they make it rain before those clouds go over a city and rain there where they would be wasted anyway.
@@the_crypter she didn’t go into depth, basically just said that it’s junk science and wasnt content that belonged in her class about solving issues. a few people asked about it throughout the semester and she deflected every time and wouldn’t let somebody do their final project (a whole forum she puts on for students at research schools to look into water issues) on the subject. it’s a big time research school and she’s big into the environment and a really well trusted scientist.
I think it's a nice temporary solution, but it should be used to help grow plants that have long-term effects on the wheather (read: trees) instead of using it to continue destorying nature.
I agree
Terrible temporary solution. You aren't making it rain. You are stealing rain from someone else.
@@ingulari3977 well how are we gonna fix drought then?
Doesn't really seem effective in the long run, since droughts are on the rise that means less rain clouds with less rain clouds means less opportunities to seed the cloud.
But if the cloud seeding worked then wouldn't there be more rain which creates more lake water to evaporate into more clouds which then can be seeded. Kinda like making an orchard from the seeds of one apple.
"some farmers deny that human activity is driving climate change, but they all agree on one thing: things are definitely getting worse" HOW CAN YOU BE SO BLIND??
This is nothing new. Countries in Asia have already gone to court over disputes of one country "stealing" another countries rain by causing more intense landfall on one countries soil rather than the other, thus diminishing the total volume of water left to be released in precipitation. Water is a finite resource.
The phrase 'Humans have finally...' suggests this is new. People have been doing this for ages across the world. Even in the US it has been done time and again since the 40s
This feels bad. Desperate times calling for desperate measures that still aren't viable as long-term solutions. Thank you for the informative video
In many countries cloudseeding is a viable long-term solution. It's been used successfully in Australia for decades.
Yet we still have global warming, huge fires and temperature amplitudes
Even if we stop emissions it would take 50-60 years to even have ANY noticeable impact
@@somerandomguy7458 no matter what we do the climate will change, we are due for an ice age.
@@somerandomguy7458 After 200 years of constant imissions that's the best we can hope for. Plus stopping immisions isn't about reversing what we've done it's about stopping what's to come.
I find it baffling that farmers, of all people, can be in denial about the affects of climate change. Is it something in the water?
It's something in the kool-aid
We have been seeding clouds for rain for quite a few decades now, this isnt a thing we just figured out, i learned about this in school in the early 1990s.
I just defended my PhD on this subject at the University of Wyoming, working with the people who did the SNOWIE experiment. I focus on the orographic wintertime seeding efforts in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. My work shows an increase in precipitation of 1.1% for these seeded storms.
It must be nice to see that your hard work is changing the world
Increase precipitation in one area... decrease it in another.
1.1% is a lot less than 15. Is that because it's Wyoming, rather than a place as arid as Texas? Or?
Do you have any data on whether it negatively impacts precipitation in surrounding regions? Also does an increase of 1% make a significant enough difference that it would be worth the cost of cloud seeding?
wintertime stuff in the mountains that i study is a bit different of a situation that is easier to nail down the yield. summer time programs like the one showcased in this video are much more difficult to nail down the impacts and that "15%" is a verryyyyy uncertain guess to my knowledge.
By your explanation, cloud seeding seems like putting a plaster on a massive wound. Also I'd like to point out that ground water is not a renewable resource a common misconception.
Water is a renewable resource. When we consume water, we can easily clean it back using even simple tools. It's fossil groundwater that's not renewable, and places like Arizona and Texas use tons of it. Edit: typo
@@PG-3462 Non-renewable water resources are not replenished at all or for a very long time by nature. This includes the so-called fossil waters. Renewable water resources are rechargeable due to the hydrological cycle unless they are overexploited, comprising groundwater aquifers and surface water like rivers and lakes.
I understand that they use silver iodide to sort of coax the water out of the clouds as rain and they repeatedly do this if the clouds hold on to that water too much to kinda help the natural cycle happen? I think that means they're not adding more water from somewhere else
Water doesnt simply dissapear from our universe, it is transformed into a different form. The problem come when the cycle of regeneration of water is broken. Its really hard to get it back to work, in fact, it is so hard that even our planet doesnt know how to do it, thats a reason we have deserts in many places in the world, because the cycle doesnt work there
@@user-pattt Congrats, you litterally just explained why your first comment doesn't make sense.
They do this in the UAE 🇦🇪 too. In New Year's Eve 2021 , they cloudseeded All of Uae and it was raining for 3 hrs. The roads were full of water
Now it's more than obvious
@videosinmyplaylist Well I have seen the news and the government is saying they did not do any cloudseeding before the 16th April floods,so who knows what caused it.
There once was a man who knew how to make a special mixture that he would release into the air which created rain clouds and rain. He would go to towns who needed water from drought. His mixture worked too well sometimes, flooding a town with too much rain. Unfortunately he never wrote his recipe down and he never trained anyone in his methods so the mixture was lost to time. I have faith that one day someone will figure out the right combination that gentlemen did.
Cloud seeding only works if there are water-filled [thundstorm] clouds in the area (I.e. rain enhancers). The main problem is that climate change is altering the formation of water-filled clouds.
Literally what the video says.
You haven't realised they are heating water bodies to form the clouds. Search bill gates powerplants in the middle of the ocean. The clouds they produce can be seen from space
not true the clouds don't have to b water filled the seeding will pull water from the surrounding air into the cloud making it bigger
" Cloud seeding only works if there are water-filled [thundstorm] clouds" Nope they spray aerosols which have metal nanoparticles in them. "Ice nucleation by micas" use of Pseudomonas syringae particles Silica aerogel nanopowder, nano-sized titanium dioxide, silver iodide, barium strontium, aluminum And " Nanoparticle additive fuels: Atomization, combustion and fuel characteristics" are added to aircraft fuel "The main problem is that climate change is altering the formation of water-filled clouds" Nope, weather and climate engineering is altering the weather and climate.
Question: does the silver iodide affect the environment?
Cloud seeding does not amount to a harmful level of sodium iodide. Therefore it does not, however cloud seeding does , it can cause changes in rainfall patterns .If done wron , it can also create massive changes in temperature within an area.
That was my question, too. The report they highlighted here talked about "negligible" effects, but that's pretty vague. The report talked about silver being detected in parts per trillion in the water, and parts per billion on the ground (so, apparently higher concentration on ground), but that these were less than what's expected in the natural background quantity of silver. However, my question is, would repeated seeding result in an accumulation that eventually goes above what's considered safe. Sure, concentrations might be low when sampling after one experiment, or even a few experiments, but what if they're seeding on a regalar basis? What then? We shouldn't make communities into guinea pigs while we test this out.
@@teraiii8141 just image an area where they did cloud seeding for a decade or two. U think it would still not be a harmful level ?
@@anahata2009 Yeah seems like a big point to let out of this video
@@teraiii8141 It could if you do it regularly over decades.
Gpa was a chemical engineer in 40s and think this technology existed before that. He was a believer in this technology so I have wondered why it hasn’t been used more. He also stress tested airplanes so maybe he should have delved more into this technology. I had miss remembered it as silver nitrate not iodide. Very nice-thanks for sharing!
UAE Floods are caused by cloud seeding in UAE cloud seeding project . It also causes flood damage in neighboring countries. And takes away natural rainfall in the surrounding areas, accelerating dryness, forest fires, droughts, and deserts. In order to make natural rainfall, it is necessary to green the desert and increase forests.
Surprisingly, cloud seeding has become daily practice by now across China. When we shot our video on the wilderness along the Sino-Russian border region, we were shocked how everything around there is controlled by humans: the fields, the river, and yes - even the rain.
Waiting for the redscare comments down here.
but... communism bad!
Is it good or bad?
@@orionsbelt9381 May be good, prevents droughts and helps crops grow.
China has regions that would normally have no real rainfall, but these regions have the best soil for plants, so by using cloud seeding they can produce a huge amount of crops in regions where it would have been impossible, like California in Amerika where it's only due to aqueducts that plants can be grown. But it has effects on climate, when you take water away before it reaches its original destination, this water will come short for the original region, but for now, no study can really say whether or not it affects the climate long time, but we know it changes something in the cycle, and that the biodiversity can be endangered by it. overall there are concerns because of weather change and the chemicals used (silver iodide, potassium iodide, or solid carbon dioxide), that it's most likely risky and endanger marine life, stall plant growth, damage the ozone layer, and reduce rainfall and increasing warming in other areas. also not always does it go as planned In "2009, China used cloud-seeding to bring reprieve to a drought. As a result, the temperatures suddenly dropped and Beijing was blanketed in the snow" (Pacific standard). Also Over 190 countries have agreed to a 2010 United Nations ban on using the climate engineering technology for large-scale climate engineering over concerns about its effect on biodiversity and so on, but china and other countries still use this on a very large scale...
Cloud seeding was first used in the Vietnam War in 1967 in an attempt to wash out Vietnamese infrastructure with unusually large rains.
did it work probably doesn't matter cuz they lost anyway
@@user-mc6vi8yd7l yes, it worked
@@user-mc6vi8yd7l Vietnam did not lose?
@@fordtski he clearly meant the americans
@@user-mc6vi8yd7l The US military also considered using smallpox. Wouldn't be the last bioweapon they considered using. Thanks to Fauci, biowarfare is still alive.
Here right now after hearing about Dubai flooding from cloud seeding. I think they should try cloud seeding in the farther north areas for more snow to save the animal wildlife there and to make the temperature even colder because more snow on the ground equals more sunlight getting reflected back to space keeping the temperatures colder since temperatures are rising. They also said seeding the atmosphere with millions of tons of ice particles will prevent greenhouses from building up and cause it to fall back to earth.
I can't believe you didn't covered the problems with cloud seeding.
In 20 years: how silver iodine rain poisoned the groundwater
@@Nate-.- that is still the same thing, I'm fairly sure because iodide is iodine, like 99% sure
@@spooniiboii And iodine is an essential nutrient. That's why salt is enriched with it.
The amounts of silver iodide used have a negligible effect on the environment
@@spooniiboii iodine is the element, iodide is an iodine ion in a salt compound(has 1 extra electron), therefore Silver Iodide is still correct
@@zmarc- I wasn't saying he was wrong I was just saying
Little known fact: Kurt Vonnegut Jr's brother, Bernard Vonnegut, discovered silver iodide and effectively invented cloud seeding in 1946.
Has Vox ever covered Worker-Rights and -Struggles as good as 'Some More News' and 'Second Thought', who get showered iwth Praise for this very thing?
Uncle Bernie
chem trails dont exist! ;)
@@JavierFernandez01 Not in the sense that everyone talk about. Airliners would not be used for this, since it would be way too expensive, and they fly too high for it to have any effect. They are also not rated to fly as close to cumulonimbus clouds as these planes are, where an STC has been issued by the FAA. The white streams coming from an airliner's turbofans are a combination of Carbon Dioxide, uncombusted Kerosene, Nitrates, and most importantly Water. The atmospheric stability, relative humidity, temperature, and pressure all play an important role as to how fast they dissipate, as does the thrust setting of the airplane. They don't produce contrails at low power, or close to the ground. They do when the surrounding air is cold and humid, with a high power setting, as is normally the case in cruise flight. Kerosene (Jet A-1) is composed of many hydrocarbons, but a very prevalent one is dodecane (C12H26) [2C12H26 + 37O2 => 24CO2 + 26H2O]. This would be with perfect combustion in a pure oxygen atmosphere. One of the 2 products of the reaction is water, that has the ability to condense and from clouds. That's where the water comes from. These planes use flares, not spray (at least where I am from. It could be different elsewhere). Liquid doesn't disperse as easily and is generally heavier per volume of effective nucleation site dispersement.
I guess that explains some of the inspiration for Cat’s Cradle!
This is the water cycle that keeps us alive. Wow thank you for the review of 2nd grade science
Permaculture is the solution. Not further polluting the water cycle with more chemicals
Yes!
I wish... Permaculture can't solve all our needs.
@@Hansulf permaculture is the solution for stabilizing the water cycle. I didn't say it would meet all our needs... that was your narrative addition.
@@caz6152 Well, if permaculture is not going to meet our needs, then we need to apply another system, right?
@@Hansulf is this where you tell me to buy Bitcoin ?
Isn't making a cloud rain prematurely or rain more than it otherwise would essentially stealing that rain from the places where it would have fallen naturally? If not done responsibly, I fear this could end up causing environmental disruptions or droughts where there normally wouldn't be. In the worst case, this could cause international conflicts. I can easily see this being utilized as a tactic to purposely bring droughts to neighboring nations or for gate keeping the rain for economic gains.
Not impossible, although there are places that get too much rain or snow, or the ocean.
youre ignoring the fact that there is a cycle...so areas beyond the ones they seed will feed more water into the cycle through evaporation...
Yes, cloud seeding is basically turning clouds into water prematurely. That can have a lot of implications.
What happens to the Silver Iodide that falls down with the rain on the farm soil? What effects does that have on the quality of crops that grow? I am surprised that's not even mentioned as that was the first question I had in my head. This almost looks like a promotional video sponsored by a pro cloud seeding company.
Shh. You're not supposed to ask questions or think about long term consequences. As a farmer, however, it concerns me too.
@@djones1558 stop with that conspiracy nonsense. Of course you are allowed to ask questions
@@escapefromtibet2530 hes pointing out that they are not thinking long term
Eventually it's going to come back to bite us. Lab tests on silver iodide show that it is toxic to plants and animals. It's also going to end up in the ocean and other water bodies.
@@unidentifiedleiviathan7250 Yep!
When we noticed this was happening years ago we were called conspiracy theorists as per usual just ahead of the curve
There was an article in Popular Science magazine in June 2017 about cloud seeding. In fact, here in Fargo, North Dakota, a local business called Weather Modification Inc has been flying all over the world for 10+ years to do cloud seeding
I heard about this some time ago. But the issue is you’re obviously taking that water from another place that needs it as well so then we’re just creating new problems. So it just goes back to real long term solution is solving climate change
Not necessarily, you could be taking water from clouds that would otherwise rain back into the ocean which isn't useful to anyone.
One piece alabasta arc in a nutshell
I dont think we will solve climate change in time. The world is too corrupt
@@Jeyblox exactly
Well those people are living the direct, more severe consequences of climate change and they still deny that humans have an impact on it. Amazing...
People still denying climate change?!
Are people still denying the sun is hot?
A huge portion of Americans, yes
THIS DID NOT AGE WELL
Around 2018 in Venezuela, people started getting sick with rare simptoms. The government said it was a new mosquito desease. Some venezuelan scholars said that it was intoxication caused by chemical the government use to make more rain. The whole electric grid in Venezuela is run by hidroeléctricas and the absence of rains caused some electrical problems. I have some worries of the long term effects of those chemical that they use to force raining.
One guy wrote a comment under one of youtube videos that he has been desert-farming for years in Texas and has been watering his plants just once a month instead of several times a month, but still has been getting good results. His secret is placing a layer of peat moss (or something like that) 3 feet under the ground. I'd also put a sheet of plastic under the peat moss in order to conserve the water and may be put something above the ground that gives light shadow. It's very hard to grow something under the sun with no clouds, so there should be technologies applied to conserve water and prevent soil from drying up and cracking. That's my opinion. I'm not an expert.
like, letting nature grow plants when you're not using the land?!
It kinda disrupts the water cycle. By not letting water seep in, the ground water depletes which results in empty lakes and dams which causes lesser evaporation and in turn lesser water in the clouds and also drinking water shortage.
@@vamsikrishnabodaballa2739 Also putting plastic into the ground is never a truly good idea.
The plastic sheet is mulching paper and is also used to reduce weed growth
Is it possible that cloud seeding might reduce cloud cover and have adverse effects on the climate? If clouds reflect solar radiation it seems this would contribute to global warming/climate change. Maybe it's too early to know at this point.
No proof of that. This is old tech i first heard 20 years ago but infact it has its origins from 1946(war is over scientists are back at doing something useful)
Is it possible they’ve been doing this for decades and have been manipulating the weather whenever they want
One my side I will be more worried that it reduces the overall rainfalls, maybe there will a slight increase on the program's crops, but I'm sure the neighbors will suffer a lack of water (I'm glider pilot).
Reducing cloud cover also reduces albedo, so it’s definitely a factor… doubly so when it is used to form reservoirs, since large bodies of water also have lower albedo than other surface cover such as vegetation or geology.
@@sibproust9369 But it says right there in the video. 15% more annual rainfall after seeding. 😒 Idk if it really works or if it's more correlation than causation but assuming you get less rain after data says you have more rain is a bit of a stretch, yeah? I mean, why gather data at all?
Didn't they try it in an Indian state of Tamilnadu almost a decade earlier . They actually tried it twice , the first time it was successful and the second time the winds weren't favourable and it backfired and caused excessive rainfall in the neighbouring country srilanka .
Man, this is going to be one big mess. Rain falling in one place means drought on another spot. What if that other spot is in another country? Long term downsides could be really huge as well.
The science and medical community still have not come to a consensus on the prolonged use and exposure of silver iodide. Siting different climates with different concentrations over time will have varying unpredictable results. Silver iodide is not bioavailable and will concentrate in soils over time.
“Have finally figured out” This technology was known since the 1960s
They said the 40s on the video itself
Cloud seeding is old thing,. In Indonesia we have dry season and wet season. Dry season is when land gone dry and no rain for long time. In 1996 - 1998 is the worst dry season in Indonesia that make many forest flame into fire,.at that time i hear all the time the TV news about goverment apply cloud seeding and man made raining in many spot in indonesia. I even alot of time see small airplane flying aroud above my area at that time,. And then the rain happened.
I’m I my here because of the Dubai situation of heavy rains that happened recently, and the most likely source of their issues is cloud seeding.
10-15% improvement is laudable, but far short of sufficient. Also, if the droughts are going to get worse, there'll be less clouds to seed in the first place. It's a band-aid solution at best. We need to curb not only CO2 but also Methane emissions drastically, in a heck of a hurry, to avoid profound changes in the Earth's climatic zones. We're causing the end of one geologic age and the starting of another. Try to wrap your head around that. In spite of all the press climate change gets, it's still bigger, over a longer period of time, than most people understand. You have to mentally zoom out and think of Earth in geologic time spans to really get how serious this issue is. I suggest watching a lot of geology videos. The geologists and the paleontologists are the ones who really have a grasp of what's happening now, because they make a living studying similar changes that have happened in the past.
Jesus. Reading your comment literally caused my bp to go up. I’m off to find videos
Prepare for food shortages before its to late...
I fear that if we drain the clouds more than they already rain, the area covered by clouds will shrink and thus the atmispheric sunlight reflection will decrease too locally, resulting in more heating on the ground and worsen droughts otherwise. In this case cloud seeding would be counterproductive.
Cloud seeding was a topic back in the 1960's. The question most asked was, who's cloud moisture is it ? If they seed the clouds before they reach my land, where is my water coming from?
Pay attention when they start spraying...watch the weather change...I've been keeping track for 4 years now, I never been wrong so far.
Hubris of humanity at work again. Instead of just admitting we have overexploited areas that cannot sustain intensive agriculture and try to rethink our terrible ways, we're just gonna try to force clouds to rain now...
In Russia, it is common practice to do cloud seeding around big cities before holidays - so that it rains somewhere else rather than in the city during the holiday. Usually they do it before Victory day to clear the sky for flypasts.
I feel like this topic needs like at least another episode, because there are so many open questions to it!
Manipulating weather could be used against your enemies or to do damage to the climat itself! Then they can blame us for farting or driving our cars and try to stop us! Unbelievable!
Relatively common in Alberta during the summer, although for a different reason. We can get some really nasty hailstorms when the warm moist air comes over the rocky mountains. This can destroy crops, punch holes in house siding, dent cars, and even seriously injure anyone unfortunate enough to be outside. It's not 100%, but it tends to reduce the size of hailstones, thus increasing crop yield and decreasing damage to both people and property.
I can’t help noticing that mono culture (only having one or few types of plant in an area) is further worsening the situation. Why are we trying to change as much as possible away from what is natural? If there were more trees and bushes, the insects would thrive and the effect the sun would be less damaging and dry out the soil less (due to shadow). We see that the farmers are standing under a tree. Usually the ground around trees are greener. I notice this in Greece were I am right now. And if the ground doesn’t dry out as quickly this would be better for the aquifers which again affect the water cycle. However, industrial farming wants to have big gains, no matter what, without realizing the damage its causing, also for itself. Lets plant more trees and natural occuring plants, it will benefit everyone; insects, animals, birds and us.
Paired with a drone distribution system that runs on an AI that can track and auto send to clouds, this could honestly become a way to bring water to over drying areas and may even be used to increase farm yield.
If one area pays to increase their rain by 15% have they also paid to decrease their neighbors rain by 15%? And if serious sustained drought is an issue what stops a wealthy county full of golf courses and suburban lawns from doing this?
That’s not how this works…
@@ALueLLah it is though? Using cloud seeding your taking water out of the cloud. That means that more water falls on one area but after that the cloud doesn’t have enough water to really rain much in a different area.
yep, in the same way there are river compacts that agree who can take what water out, similarly if this is as effective as they are saying there would probably needs to be federal limits on how often you can do it.
First and foremost, inducing more rain by seeding won’t affect the clouds in neighboring areas, as crystallization effect from silver doesn’t just jump cloud to cloud… and clouds are not stationary objects, they move and shift with wind, so you can’t order rain like takeout just with money. The rain from seeding helps large area as the rain cloud travels according to weather patterns. Secondly, considering these are high drought areas, extracting more rain from the cloud likely results in more downpour than the neighboring cities will experience naturally anyways. And let’s not forget that rain, like clouds, is not stationary and there will be overflow. Farms and cities alike rely heavily on rivers and dams, which are replenished by rain, and used by many counties over, so yes, this would really benefit the whole region. Really. Let’s be logical this isn’t science fiction.
@@ALueLLah thanks Al, but we already knew what clouds were.
We have had this technology for a while now, they have done this in many different countries. Dubai has been doing this many years.
Trees make rain, thus we need more trees.
This was discovered in 2000's but put in affect in 2018 and in Saudi Arabia and Qatar!
From personal experience, in Phoenix AZ, seeding the clouds has made the infrequent storms more detrimental. The storms bring stronger winds and torrential downpour when it does rain. Instead of feeding my thirsty plants they're ripped up from the roots and snapped off in the wind.
There is an accidental Pond5 individual frame at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="416">6:56</a> still in the video between the storm footage and the following scene
I remember learning cloud seeding as a kid and I wish they would do it more in my area.
I remember reading this in a science book in elementary school in the 80s my science book had to have been from the 60s/70s
Would have been great to investigate the impact of using those chemicals released in the air, and the fact that forcing rain on farming area will deprive even more other areas. We need to stop unsustainable agriculture, corn for example is a massive waste of water. This is putting a bandage on a bullet wound. Agriculture is the biggest consumer of water by a huge margin, we need to rethink our way to farm. Not force the rain with planes and chemicals that contribute to global warming.
Your comment is so full of errors I'm not sure where to start. These objections have been raised and openly discussed for decades. The chemical used, silver iodide, is perfectly safe for crops and dams. A microscopic quantity of the substance is used. It's absolutely false that silver iodide is a "chemical that contributes to global warming." It's also not the case that "forcing rain on farming areas will deprive even more other areas." Cloud-seeding programs, of which there are many around the world, are cautious about where and when they seed. They also have only marginal control over where and when rainclouds appear. The idea is that they squeeze as much rain as possible from a rain-cloud that will be passing by anyway. They don't and can't steal rain from one area and "force" it to fall on another. Cloud-seeding is a sustainable, environmentally-friendly solution that can support hydro-electric schemes as well as sustainable crops. If we're serious about mitigating the effects of climate change, we need to be open-minded about what science has to offer.
@@BooRadleyTube exactly
more like Vox finally figured out this actually exists
Cloud seeding doesn’t “fix” anything. I appreciate the science you’re laying down though
Helps a bit 15%. It something 🤖
@@SuperRonaldPig it helps those willing to pay for it - rain for you means no rain for others downstream
“Finally”? What if I told you… *They’ve been doing this for decades*
Yeah they did this before Woodstock in '69 to deter the concert goers
All I can think of Is the Alabasta ark in one piece. Where the twist reveal is that water capture technology was used to heighten disparity with water capture & distribution between regions. Perhaps pessimistic of me but I am immediately worried as to how this technology can be misused.
you should look into what happened when they tried this in the '70s it almost destroyed a town called Big lake Texas with record setting hail
This hasn’t aged well for Dubai
i'm sorry that Texas doesn't have enough funds to fund cloud seeding. here in south eastern europe, thank god, we have seeding every day. countless planes fly over my head every day for years and i have to tell you it's beautiful. the sun is beautiful, sparkling white and the sky never turns blue, so it's good and healthy, always ready for some kind of healthy, enriched rain
Ya gotta love the cognitive dissonance of acknowledging that the climate is getting worse but refusingto admit humans are the cause / solution.
Left hand: Humans aren't causing atmospheric changes by releasing co2 Right hand: lets release chemicals to change the atmosphere
infuriating right? of course it's in Texas.
The cognitive dissonance is more about the seriousness and understanding of the problem and its solution rather than acknowledging it.
I'm gonna guess and say it'll take ten years before it's even viable let alone profitable. Hopefully I'm proven wrong
This is technology is old and already viable, it’s called cloud seeding
@@jrbello8266 It's not viable, nor profitable. To do cloud seeding, you need to use silver iodine, which is both extremely expensive and toxic once in the environment. Not only its toxic, but it bioaccumulates in biological tissues, so if you keep spraying it above fields, we will end up intoxicating ourselves.
@@PG-3462 Cloud seeding is viable, but not profitable. It is a mid century invention. In larger scale it's an environmental hazard. It has been used for Local weather, such as declouding for parades, militarily tactics in exercises. No, it not the answer to environmental issues. It's neither feasible at larger scale nor wished for. And on an industral scale simply impossible. Yes, VOX totally butchered that issue with dangerous half-knowledge and doomed hopes for those seeing the solution in cloud seeding.
@@PG-3462 in order to work it needs first of all clouds hahah
@@PG-3462 profit is relative, especially if your alternative is a few million dollars flood damage during monsoon season and several more for crop damages during drought seasons (especially during el nino-la nina) and no, toxicity is also relative, and the amount of chemicals used today remains negligible in concentration, both toxicity-in-environment and bioaccumulation are still statistically insignificant across researches in the last 50 years
In USSR cloud seeding used to clear a sky in Moscow before major celebrations and parades.
And then they say its just a conspiracy..if they do this they can do more "things"
Cloud seeding has been here for a while. Back in Vietnam they used cloud seeding to flood the underground tunnels where the Vietnamese hid. Look it up, there’s KZhead videos on it.
To cause landslides
Cloud seeding also prevents hail from forming by making it rain earlier in a thunderstorm's life. As farmers, my dad & I have paid for cloud seeding every chance we had since 1950.
MSM for the last 50 years: geoengineering is a conspiracy theory! MSM Today: Yeah we mess with the weather all the time, what of it?
The problem is tha you are getting water with heavy metals on it. Better to seed forests.
Is the silver that falls on the ground good for plants or humans? I mean, will it end up in the harvest and so in our food? Are there gonna be issues with less cloud-shielding from heat and an overheating that might cancel the effects of the enhanched precipitation? If that water gets to be taken down from the clouds "earlier" than when there are enough water droplets in the sky to create new precipitation, wouldn't it just make it rain more earlier and less later? I'd like to see a video also about the possible issues vox. Btw, thanks for your informative videos as always
Just enough to cause extreme weather to push climate change and force food shortage.
I wonder what the rural texas farmers would have said if you told them that you believe this is a result of climate change 🤔
Regenerative Agriculture would help a lot too. If the rain falls onto dirt, it evaporates easily, if it falls onto healthy soil, it will hold that water in.
What about deforestation??? We completely deforested the whole US and now we are surprised it's not raining anymore...