The rainmakers of the 21st century may be armed with powerful lasers. New research suggests that zapping clouds with laser beams could trigger the formation of condensation droplets that would fall to the ground as rain. But while the study, published in Nature Photonics, raises the tantalizing hope of bringing on-demand rain to parched regions, some experts argue the technique is unlikely to ever be practical.
For more than 50 years, efforts to try to artificially induce rain have concentrated on 'cloud seeding' — scattering small particles of silver iodide into the air to act as 'condensation nuclei', or centres around which rain droplets can grow. "The problem is, it's still not clear that cloud seeding works efficiently," says optical physicist Jérôme Kasparian at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. "There are also worries about how safe adding silver iodide particles into the air is for the environment" [Nature News].
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