Weather Modification Research

As climate change continues to impact cloud formation and development, weather modification efforts worldwide are working to enhance precipitation (e.g., rain and snow) and mitigate hail. To effectively introduce “seeding” material into clouds, you need detailed and accurate information on cloud properties that are particular to a given region and season. In order to know when and where to seed clouds, it’s critical to understand specific aerosol and cloud properties. Instruments from Droplet help you measure:

• Liquid water content (LWC)
• Mass weighted diameter (MVD)
• Size distributions of droplet and ice crystal number and mass concentrations
• Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN)
• Background aerosol number and mass concentrations

Discoveries that matter

Weather modification researchers in more than a dozen countries on five continents use Droplet instruments on their aircraft to provide the information that improves their seeding success rates. Our instrumentation and team of scientists support you in several phases of a campaign.

• Aerosol-cloud interaction research – Evaluating whether cloud seeding can be effective within the existing environment by investigating background interactions between aerosols and clouds.
• Targeting – Determining if the microphysics of a cloud are prime for seeding, allowing real-time decision making and optimizing mission time.
• Characterization – Classifying the cloud characteristics and developing a basic climatology once seeding has occurred.
• Evaluation ­– Applying advanced analysis techniques to determine if seeding has produced the desired effect by measuring changes in droplet size distribution.