Environmental aspects of cloud seeding

Abstract

The estimates are presented of the possible level of environmental pollution with reagents resulting from precipitation modification by cloud seeding. It is demonstrated that the amount of reagents (crystallizing reagents based on silver iodide (AgI), cooling reagents, and powder reagents) injected to the clouds does not exceed the level of inflow of these chemicals to the atmosphere from natural and anthropogenic sources. These data and the data on the pollution level in the areas where AgI is actively used, allow stating the extremely low impact of cloud seeding on the environmental pollution. No change in the precipitation regime was detected in the regions adjoining the areas where weather modification experiments on the meteorological protection of megalopolises were conducted.