Cloud Seeding: Delhi’s 2025 Artificial Rain Experiment – Process, Benefits, and Challenges
Explore India’s first cloud seeding experiment in Delhi (2025) with IIT-Kanpur. Learn how cloud seeding works, its benefits, failure reasons, costs, and challenges in pollution control and rainfall enhancement.
Cloud Seeding in India 2025
In October 2025, Delhi carried out its first cloud seeding experiment in collaboration with IIT-Kanpur to induce artificial rain and combat severe air pollution. The operation involved dispersing silver iodide and sodium chloride flares from a Cessna aircraft. However, despite two trials, no rainfall occurred, and Delhi’s air quality remained in the “very poor” category. The experiment, though unsuccessful, marks a crucial step in India’s efforts to explore weather modification as a pollution control and drought management tool.
What is Cloud Seeding?
Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique used to artificially enhance rainfall from existing clouds. It involves releasing chemical agents like silver iodide (AgI), potassium iodide (KI), or sodium chloride (NaCl) into the atmosphere using aircraft, drones, rockets, or ground-based generators.
These substances act as condensation nuclei, attracting water vapour and allowing droplets to coalesce and form precipitation. While the concept originated in the 1940s in the U.S., countries such as China, Israel, and the UAE have used it extensively to augment water resources and control pollution.
Advantages of Cloud Seeding
1. Air Pollution Control
Cloud seeding can temporarily wash down suspended pollutants like PM2.5, PM10, dust, and smoke particles from the atmosphere. Artificial rain acts as a natural scrubber, helping to clear smog during high-pollution episodes — especially in northern Indian cities like Delhi during winter.
2. Water Resource Management
By enhancing rainfall in drought-prone regions, cloud seeding contributes to reservoir recharge, groundwater replenishment, and river flow improvement. States like Maharashtra and Karnataka have previously experimented with this technique to mitigate droughts.
3. Agricultural Benefits
Rain enhancement can improve soil moisture and stabilize crop yields during dry spells. In semi-arid regions, it can protect standing crops and enhance food security by mitigating monsoon variability.
4. Disaster Mitigation
Cloud seeding has been used to reduce hail formation and prevent crop damage. By encouraging the formation of smaller raindrops instead of large hailstones, it limits agricultural losses and infrastructure damage.
Why Did Delhi’s Experiment Fail?
Despite scientific preparation, the Delhi cloud seeding experiment failed to produce rain due to multiple technical and meteorological constraints:
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Low Moisture Content: Cloud humidity was only 15–20%, far below the optimal 50%+ required for condensation.
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Unfavourable Weather: Delhi’s winter atmosphere is too stable and dry, with limited vertical cloud development. Seeding works best during western disturbances or natural rain-bearing systems.
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Limited Duration: Only two flights were conducted — too few to produce measurable outcomes. Successful programs (e.g., in China and Thailand) conduct hundreds of trials under varying conditions.
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Cloud Variability: Cloud microphysics differ based on origin, temperature, and size, so seeding agents don’t always trigger precipitation.
While rainfall didn’t occur, officials observed a marginal dip in PM2.5 and PM10 levels, showing limited success in pollutant settlement. Experts, however, caution that such interventions are temporary and uncertain.
Challenges and Concerns
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Temporary Impact: Cloud seeding cannot create rain without clouds; its effects are short-lived, and pollution levels rebound quickly.
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High Costs: Each operation costs around ₹60–70 lakh. Delhi’s 2025 trial cost ₹3.5 crore, raising concerns about cost-effectiveness compared to structural pollution-control measures.
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Environmental Risks: Chemicals like silver iodide may accumulate in soil or water bodies. Though concentrations are typically low, long-term ecological data is limited.
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Administrative Delays: Cloud seeding requires clearance from aviation, defence, and meteorological agencies, often causing bureaucratic hurdles.
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Ethical & Geopolitical Issues: Large-scale weather modification could have transboundary effects, sparking questions over ownership and distribution of rainfall.
Conclusion
Cloud seeding represents a technological experiment, not a long-term solution. While it can offer short-term relief during pollution crises or droughts, its success depends on favourable atmospheric conditions.
For sustainable outcomes, India must focus on source-based pollution reduction, renewable energy expansion, and urban transport reforms. Weather modification can complement — but not replace — comprehensive environmental and agricultural strategies.
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The Source’s Authority and Ownership of the Article is Claimed By THE STUDY IAS BY MANIKANT SINGH
