The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Cloud-seeding: call for right methodology

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 30, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Cloud-seeding: call for right methodology

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI, SEPT. 29. V.P. Dimri, Director, National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, expressed pessimism over the current methodology being followed for cloud-seeding operations in the country in view of the `numerical problems' that had sprung up in the process of seeding.

He was speaking after inaugurating a two-day national workshop on cloud-seeding jointly organised in SV University under the aegis of the National MST Radar Facility, Tirupati, and the university's Department of Physics.

It was in this context that he suggested the application of the `fractal-based' cloud model to retrieve information from satellite images, which is considered a challenge.

Experts for workshop

Leading scientists from several national laboratories and scientific organisations like the IISc Bangalore, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, ISRO, DRDO, IAF, DST, C-MMACS, Bangalore, IIT Delhi, besides scientists of the MST Radar Centre and officials from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are participating in the workshop.

Expressing reservations over the present methodology being followed in the cloud-seeding operation, the NGRI chief said that though the precipitation radar was considered the most innovative instrument at present to measure rainfall, its efficacy was again dependent on the size of the raindrops present in the clouds and their distribution. This in turn again depended on the cloud size and distribution, he said.

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