The rocket launcher used for artificial precipitation enhancement is worth about 200 thousand.
Rockets belong to arms, and transportation and launch costs are not small expenses.
There is also the need to launch sounding balloons every time, and to analyze and process the data. These indirect inputs are not easy to calculate and unclear.
At present, there are two main methods of artificial precipitation enhancement.
One is to spread dry ice and other coolants into the cloud by plane, which makes the temperature in the cloud drop significantly, and the tiny water droplets and ice crystals increase rapidly, forcing them to drop and form precipitation.
The second is to use rockets and shells to shoot chemicals into the sky, bombarding the clouds to produce powerful shock waves, so that cloud droplets collide with each other and merge into raindrops to land.
The cost of the two methods of precipitation enhancement is different, so the choice of rocket bombardment is mainly based on cost saving, because the cost of a plane broadcast is as high as several million yuan.
According to the principle of cloud and precipitation physics, by sowing precipitation enhancers (salt powder, dry ice or silver iodide, etc. ) When entering the cloud, cloud droplets or ice crystals will increase to a certain extent and fall to the ground to form precipitation, which is also called artificial precipitation enhancement. The methods of sowing include aircraft sowing in the cloud, anti-aircraft guns or rockets firing silver iodide shells into the cloud to explode, and burning silver iodide flame agent on the ground. This is the most common experiment in weather modification.
Under certain conditions, the microphysical process of artificially influencing clouds can stimulate clouds that can't naturally precipitation, and can also make those clouds that have more water supply and can often naturally precipitation, improve precipitation efficiency and increase precipitation. However, cloud energy that can't naturally precipitation can supply less water, so the economic value of artificial catalysis is limited.
However, the benefits of artificial precipitation enhancement far outweigh the costs.