This simulator demonstrates the microphysical chain of events behind cloud seeding: how introducing silver iodide or dry ice into a supercooled cloud triggers ice nucleation, how the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen process lets growing ice crystals draw water vapor away from surrounding liquid droplets, and how hygroscopic salt particles instead accelerate droplet coalescence in warm clouds, ultimately producing precipitation heavy enough to fall.
Choose a cloud type, cold supercooled cloud or warm liquid cloud, then select a seeding agent, silver iodide, dry ice, or hygroscopic salt particles, appropriate to that cloud type. Adjust the seeding particle concentration and cloud temperature to see how quickly ice crystals or enlarged droplets form and grow. Watch the droplet and crystal population panel to observe the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen exchange in real time, and track the precipitation output gauge to compare seeded versus unseeded outcomes under the same starting conditions.
Cloud type selector (supercooled cold cloud or warm liquid cloud); seeding agent selector (silver iodide, dry ice pellets, or hygroscopic salt particles); seeding particle concentration slider; cloud temperature slider; simulation start and reset controls; a real-time droplet and ice crystal population display; and a precipitation output comparison between seeded and unseeded runs.
Did you know that in ideal supercooled winter cloud conditions, well-instrumented experiments over Wyoming and Idaho have directly observed seeded ice crystals forming and growing into measurable extra snowfall, yet across the broader body of seeding research spanning eight decades, many equally careful studies have failed to detect a statistically significant effect at all, showing just how sensitive this process is to the exact cloud conditions present?
This simulator demonstrates the microphysical chain of events behind cloud seeding: how introducing silver iodide or dry ice into a supercooled cloud triggers ice nucleation, how the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen process lets growing ice crystals draw water vapor away from surrounding liquid droplets, and how hygroscopic salt particles instead accelerate droplet coalescence in warm clouds, ultimately producing precipitation heavy enough to fall.
This simulator demonstrates the microphysical chain of events behind cloud seeding: how introducing silver iodide or dry ice into a supercooled cloud triggers ice nucleation, how the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen process lets growing ice crystals draw water vapor away from surrounding liquid droplets, and how hygroscopic salt particles instead accelerate droplet coalescence in warm clouds, ultimately producing precipitation heavy enough to fall.
Choose a cloud type, cold supercooled cloud or warm liquid cloud, then select a seeding agent, silver iodide, dry ice, or hygroscopic salt particles, appropriate to that cloud type. Adjust the seeding particle concentration and cloud temperature to see how quickly ice crystals or enlarged droplets form and grow. Watch the droplet and crystal population panel to observe the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen exchange in real time, and track the precipitation output gauge to compare seeded versus unseeded outcomes under the same starting conditions.
Did you know that in ideal supercooled winter cloud conditions, well-instrumented experiments over Wyoming and Idaho have directly observed seeded ice crystals forming and growing into measurable extra snowfall, yet across the broader body of seeding research spanning eight decades, many equally careful studies have failed to detect a statistically significant effect at all, showing just how sensitive this process is to the exact cloud conditions present?