India is taking a significant step towards enhancing its weather management capabilities under Mission Mausam, a recently launched government initiative aimed at improving weather forecasting and managing various weather events such as rainfall, hail, and fog. Central to this mission is the establishment of India’s first convective cloud chamber at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, a critical facility to strengthen research in cloud physics—a crucial area for effective weather modification.
Know what is a Cloud Chamber?
A cloud chamber is a scientific apparatus that mimics the conditions required for cloud formation. Resembling a closed cylindrical or tubular drum, the chamber allows for the injection of water vapor, aerosols, and other particles under controlled humidity and temperature conditions. Inside this enclosed environment, clouds can develop, enabling scientists to observe and study cloud formation, droplet behavior, and ice particle formation.
The cloud chamber being developed in Pune, however, is unique because it will have convection properties tailored to studying Indian monsoon clouds. While conventional cloud chambers exist globally, only a few are designed with convective capabilities—a key factor in understanding the dynamic weather systems that dominate India’s climate.
Why a Convective Cloud Chamber?
Cloud physics involves studying cloud behavior under various conditions—whether normal or extreme. This includes intra-particle interactions, the formation of rain droplets and ice particles, and the influence of moisture from low-pressure systems and cyclones. The convective cloud chamber will enable scientists to simulate these interactions and behaviors in a controlled environment, allowing them to observe the development of rain droplets, ice particles, and other cloud components under Indian-specific atmospheric conditions.
The primary goal of this facility is to gain a deeper understanding of cloud physics, which can then be applied to strategic weather modification techniques. For example, knowing how monsoon clouds interact with environmental factors will help improve weather modification tactics like cloud seeding—an intervention used to artificially induce or enhance rainfall in targeted regions.
How Scientists Plan to Use the Cloud Chamber
With the development of the convective cloud chamber, scientists at IITM will be able to manipulate the physical and atmospheric parameters inside the chamber to recreate specific weather conditions. According to Thara Prabhakaran, a senior IITM scientist, these conditions will include variables like temperature, humidity, and convective forces that play a critical role in Indian monsoon cloud behavior. The chamber will provide an experimental setup where cloud formation and behavior can be studied in depth.
“We have several new ideas we want to test. The cloud chamber will give us a controlled environment to monitor cloud behavior under various conditions, which will help us arrive at high-level scientific findings about how monsoon clouds behave,” Prabhakaran stated. Over the next 18-24 months, scientists will focus on developing advanced instrumentation and probes necessary for these experiments, while civil construction of the chamber will take place in the coming months.
This advanced instrumentation will be crucial for monitoring the minutest properties of clouds, and seed particle injections will provide additional scenarios to investigate various environmental conditions affecting clouds.
India’s Experience with Cloud Seeding
India has already conducted extensive cloud seeding experiments through the Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX), which was conducted over four phases spanning more than a decade. The most recent experiments took place from 2016 to 2018 in the rain-shadow regions of Maharashtra’s Solapur district.
Results from these experiments indicated that cloud seeding could be an effective way to enhance rainfall under suitable conditions. For instance, cloud seeding increased rainfall by up to 46 per cent in certain areas, with an average enhancement of around 18 per cent in a 100-square-kilometer area. However, experts recognize that cloud seeding is not a one-size-fits-all solution for rainfall issues, and it must be applied strategically based on cloud characteristics.
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