May 03
Researchers in a German lab figured out how to generate small clouds on demand using a laser, pointing the way (at least in theory) for humans to control when it rains, New Scientist reports.
The new method builds on the old idea of cloud seeding, which consisted of sprinkling silver iodide crystals into clouds high in the atmosphere, the report said.
The new laser-based method involves firing very short pulses of infrared laser light–220-millijoules into just 60 femtoseconds each, equivalent to 1000 power plants–into a water-saturated air chamber at -24 degrees Celsius, creating linear clouds in the laser’s wake, according to the report.
Lest you think this occurred entirely in a lab environment, the scientists repeated the experiment in the skies over Berlin; while the results were invisible to humans, weather LIDAR picked up a huge increase in the density and size of water droplets.
The next step is to figure out how to replicate the experiment in a way that creates larger droplets that could fall as rain. (Image credit: Jean-Pierre Wolf/University of Geneva)
Post a Comment