Tests for inducing artificial rain by dispersing silver iodide in the air were held at the airport near the Ruse village of Shtrklevo. The experimental precipitation-inducing technology consists of tanks manufactured in Bulgaria that attach to the aircraft. Into the air, they disperse tiny particles of silver iodide, which bind with water vapor and turn it into rain.
“Tens of thousands of square kilometers can be “seeded” with even one flight. There are also radars mounted on the planes which help us in close proximity to the planes to assess which clouds to “seed”, stated Denislav Bonchev, meteorologist, before BNT.
Still shot: BNT
“These are aerosol microparticles that serve as artificial condensation nuclei for hail, respectively – they reduce the size of the hail,” meteorologist Viktoria Pencheva told state television. Attempts to induce artificial rain are also being made in neighboring Romania.
“The Romanians are very satisfied and plan to soon turn it into a long-term program, with very positive results,” Denislav Bonchev claims.
Experiments with this technology will continue in the summer, until it is clear whether it will be introduced in the agricultural sector.
But what effect can spraying silver iodide have on the environment? A study by Spanish scientists, published on the website of the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, finds that there is a risk of toxicity to soil and freshwater flora and fauna from repeated spraying of silver iodide for the purpose of “cloud seeding”. Here’s what the study says:
Silver iodide (AgI ) is one of the most common materials used in cloud seeding. Previous cloud seeding studies have concluded that AgI is practically not bioavailable in the environment, but instead remains in soils and sediments, so the free amounts of Ag are probably too low to cause a toxicological effect.
However, none of these studies looked at the long-term use of this practice in the same geographical areas and therefore the potential cumulative effect of AgI. The aim of this study was to assess the risk of acute toxicity caused by AgI exposure under laboratory conditions at the expected environmental concentration after repeated treatment on soil and aquatic flora and fauna.
To achieve the objectives, the viability of the soil bacteria Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas stutzeri and the survival of the earthworm Caenorhabditis elegans exposed to different concentrations of silver iodide were evaluated. The freshwater green algae Dictyosphaerium chlorelloides and the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa were exposed to silver iodide and their cell viability and photosynthetic activity were assessed.
Toxicity test results suggest that AgI in cloud seeding may moderately affect biota living in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems if cloud seeding is applied repeatedly in an area and large amounts of silver iodide accumulate in the environment.
2024-04-05 02:59:27
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