Stepped Up Rain-Making Project Amid Mexico’s Intense Heatwave and Drought James Frederick - The Guardian
go to original July 23, 2023

The carcass of a dead cow is seen near the drought-affected Sanalona dam in Culiacán, in the northern state of Sinaloa. (Jesús Bustamante/Reuters)

Amid a historic heatwave and months of drought, Mexico’s government has launched the latest phase of a cloud seeding project it hopes will increase rainfall.

The project, which began in July, involves planes flying into clouds to release silver iodide particles which then, in theory, will attract additional water droplets and increase rain or snowfall.

Cloud seeding in Mexico is “combatting the effects of drought in rural areas and contributing to refilling aquifers”, says the agriculture ministry, which has been carrying out cloud seeding at least once a year since 2020. The government has claimed significant success, saying the project was 98% effective and even helped extinguish forest fires in 2021.

But Mexico’s leading cloud physicists have cast significant doubt on the viability of the technology and experts across fields warn against simple solutions to the effects of climate change.

“There is no evidence that cloud seeding techniques allow for the increase of precipitation over important economic zones, nor is there certainty about effects outside the targeted zone,” write Fernando García García and Guillermo Montero Martínez, cloud physicists at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (Unam).

While the Mexican government claimed cloud seeding in 2021 increased precipitation by up to 40% above forecasts, the scientists say rain forecasts are highly variable and evidence does not consistently link cloud seeding and precipitation increases. Mexican scientists oversaw the world’s longest cloud seeding study from 1948 to 1970 and still failed to produce conclusive results.

Cloud seeding, “should only be considered as one element of an integrated strategy for managing water resources”, write the cloud physicists.

The agricultural ministry did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about cloud seeding and water scarcity.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: Many People in Mexico Without Power as Deadly Heat Leads to Strain on Grid (The Guardian)

Related: AP Photos: People Shade, Hydrate and Stay Indoors in Scorching Heat on u.s.-Mexico Border (Associated Press)

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