आईआईटीएम
IITM

View the complete report

The Honorable Minister Kiren Rijiju, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, on its 17th Foundation Day (27.7.2023), has released the CAIPEEX report, entitled "Cloud Aerosol and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment CAIPEEX Cloud Seeding Experiment Results and Recommendations" to the scientific community. It contains the outcome of the experiment CAIPEEX-IV at Solapur Maharashtra, testing the feasibility and effectiveness of the cloud seeding experiment that indicates it as an effective strategy for enhancing the rainfall in the region under suitable conditions.

Brief About the Report:

The Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment  (CAIPEEX) is a state of the art experiment conducted by IITM Pune to evaluate the efficacy of cloud seeding over the arid regions.  CAIPEEX followed the WMO recommendations for the scientific investigation of cloud seeding. The experiment has contributed to 267 randomized samples of convective clouds seeding. The cloud base (hygroscopic seeding) was conducted with aircraft, radar and rain gauges are used to document the seeding impact. The report includes the evaluation of these experiments, outcome, recommendations.

CAIPEEX was done in four phases and the lessons learned from the first three phases are used to plan and execute the fourth phase.
CAIPEEX IV phase has shown that there is a relative enhancement of rainfall in the seeded samples compared to no-seed samples. The rainfall can be enhanced by up to ≅ 46±13 percent at some locations and on average based on the raingagues, ≅ 18±2.6 percent in 100 square kilometers (km2) area in the downwind of seeding location over the rain shadow region of Solapur, Maharashtra.