10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Numerical Investigation on Artificial Cloud Seeding as a Means of Precipitation Enhancement
ALI AFZALIFAR, Juha Tonttila, Kudzotsa Kudzotsa, Tomi Raatikainen, Harri Kokkola, Sami Romakkaniemi, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Abstract Number: 1167 Working Group: Aerosol Modeling
Abstract Globally, about 1.2 billion people lack access to water and more than twice this number suffer from inadequate sanitation and seasonal water scarcity. Given the present consumption rate of water, this problem will only become worse. Cloud seeding, in form of artificial emission of large particles from ground or a flying aircraft, is thought to provide a promising solution to this problem particularly in regions with low rainfall. Over the years, although several studies have corroborated the positive correlation between the cloud condensation nuclei, emitted through cloud seeding, and precipitation formation, the confidence in the effectiveness of cloud seeding is still far from absolute. In the present work, the large eddy model UCLALES along with the aerosol module SALSA is applied to study aerosol-cloud microphysical processes at a cloud-resolving scale. The model UCLALES-SALSA employs a detailed sectional microphysical scheme which represents the size distribution of aerosol, clouds and precipitation in terms of number of fixed size sections. The latest version of the model benefits from schemes for both natural and artificial aerosols emissions, thus it provides a powerful means to predict the effects of cloud seeding on precipitation. Moreover, the experimental study on the effects of artificial emission of giant cloud condensation nuclei on precipitation, performed by Jung et al. (2015; ACP), is used to validate the modelling results in this work.