Artificial rain making launched to save Koh Samui from drought

[webfact]

Artificial rain making launched to save Koh Samui from drought

 

 

SAMUI: -- While several central provinces are bracing for flooding from rising rivers and plentiful rains, popular tourist destination Koh Samui is experiencing acute water shortage, prompting authorities to launch artificial rain-makings.

 

Two planes from Surat Thani Royal rain-making operation centre were flown over Koh Samui to seed clouds on Monday.

 

Meanwhile, water trucks were sent out by the district’s waterworks authority to distribute water to the residents where water from tap water has become scarce.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/artificial-rain-making-launched-save-koh-samui-drought/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2016-10-11

[Thechook]

How are they going to secure the clouds and stop floating into flooded areas?

[agudbuk]

Perhaps better to tow the island North closer to Bangkok. It would result in more rain and a shorter flight time.

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[ChrisY1]

Too late.....there's already a serious drought and now no water in KS!

[beachtime]

oops it didn't work

rain making never does!

more voodoo science

money better spent on water trucks delivering real water

[Lupatria]

Meanwhile in another part of the country they pop the champagne corks over record sales of drinking water.

Nestlé is the world's leading nutrition, health and wellness company. Good Food, Good Life is the promise we commit to everyday, everywhere –

Quote of the company's CEO: free access to water should not be a human right. Of course the company denied he ever said these words...

[williamgeorgeallen]

maybe if they fly the planes very close to the ground over the island they can make the clouds they form drop their water on the island. no good making the clouds at 10 000 feet, the island is too small a target to hit with rain from height.

start of dry season and start of high season. will be a hard time for samui.

[longtom]

34 minutes ago, FredNL said:

Just cancel Songkran on Koh Rupt !!!

 

What a very helpful post, thank you, also for reposting it on different threads.

 

Oh, forgot, I was laughing my ass off. 

[toofarnorth]

Rainy season coming to an end now far north , more hours of sun than rain ,2 weeks ago rain every day , Samui is in for a long dry I think.

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, toofarnorth said:

Rainy season coming to an end now far north , more hours of sun than rain ,2 weeks ago rain every day , Samui is in for a long dry I think.

Raining season begins for real at October on this island, statistically peaking i November, and normally very dry from mid January to mid April...

[brain150]

If they could make rain they would have done so already ... who actually believes this BS ???

[natway09]

Too much development  too quickly with little planning on the water usage  showers,, toilets sewerage treatment, cooking, laundry etc . Greedy non planning Government is now getting their own back.

It is happening just about everywhere in Thailand.

[Bantex]

Does artificial rain look and taste the same as regular rain?

[Rooo]

Any rain yet? Raining just opposite Samui. Wait for it.

[chiang mai]

On 11/10/2016 at 10:46 AM, beachtime said:

oops it didn't work

rain making never does!

more voodoo science

money better spent on water trucks delivering real water

 

Perhaps consider learning the science before moving lips!

[samuijimmy]

31 minutes ago, Rooo said:

Any rain yet? Raining just opposite Samui. Wait for it.

 

Not yet... give it a bit of a blow there ... Rooo!

I hear some people around Ban Por and Maenam,  are out of water now! 

[jamesbrock]

On 10/12/2016 at 10:12 PM, chiang mai said:

Perhaps consider learning the science before moving lips!

 

The problem is the science of cloud seeding is far from settled.

 

As I've posted a few times, this comprehensive study by the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences concludes:

 

Quote

The Committee concurs with the conclusion from Silverman (2001) that: “Based upon a rigorous examination of the accumulated results of the numerous experimental tests of the static-mode and dynamic- mode seeding concepts conducted over the past four decades, it has been found that they have not yet provided either the statistical or physical evidence required to establish their scientific validity.” This statement was made specifically in reference to glaciogenic seeding of convective clouds. With the possible exception of winter orographic clouds, it applies to virtually all efforts aimed at precipitation enhancement or hail suppression. This does not challenge the scientific basis of cloud-seeding concepts; rather, it is recognition of the lack of credible evidence that applying these concepts will lead to predictable, detectable, and verifiable results. [Source: http://www.eenews.net/assets/2014/12/17/document_gw_01.pdf]

 

People on the ground do occasionally see the effects of cloud seeding in some—not all—instances, but as found by various independent first world scientific studies, the effects often appear later in time, and outside the seeded area:

 

Quote

For example, in recent large particle hygroscopic seeding trials involving warm-base convective clouds in Thailand and Texas, increases in rain were reported 3 to 12 hours after seeding was conducted, well beyond the time at which direct effects of seeding were expected and possibly outside the target area.

 

Again, the reason why Thailand has recently been wracked by drought for 18 months, all while releasing mounds of table salt from trap doors in the bellies of its planes, is because seeding only occasionally works if the conditions for rain are there in the first place.

 

Quote

Since 1980 operational and research glaciogenic seeding experiments for rainfall enhancement based on the dynamic seeding concept have been conducted in Thailand. Exploratory analyses of these experiments have indicated precipitation increases on the scale of individual clouds or cells with varying levels of statistical support. The evidence for area-wide effects, although suggestive of precipitation increases, is weak and lacking in statistical support. 

 

More recently, according to a report presented at the 7th WMO Scientific Conference on Weather Modification in Chiang Mai in 1999, a randomised convective cloud-seeding experiment was conducted on mixed-phase clouds in Thailand, based on the dynamic seeding concept. The sample consisted of 62 units, and while the statistical results indicated increases in rainfall, the results were not statistically significant.

 

In recent hygroscopic seeding experiments conducted in Thailand and reported on in 2003, statistical analyses indicated increases in rainfall, but they appeared later in time than anticipated and did not conform to the original hypothesis. Dynamical effects, which were not included in the original hypotheses, were invoked to explain the results.

 

Dan Breed, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who in 2014 completed a nine-year, $14 million government-funded study, states “There’s little dispute that if you can actually get the seeding material inside the clouds, it will enhance precipitation, the question is, by how much?” And compared to what?

 

As the National research Council states in its report:

 

Quote

The need to predict what would have happened had there been no weather modification (which is especially important in the context of attempts to modify hazardous weather) places an enormous burden on prediction. Predictive numerical models are required to accurately assess what would have occurred in the absence of any intervention, in order to assess both the magnitude and the potential consequences of the change. However, model development and physical understanding are interdependent, thus advances in both are slow and iterative.

 

1,496,500,000 baht was allocated to the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation in FY 2014, and a further 1,563,400,000 baht in FY 2015, yet the country was wracked by its worst drought in 50 years during that time - the only time that they can actually, possibly, maybe, "make" it rain is monsoon season...

 

As beachtime said, the money would be better spent on water trucks delivering real water.

[Tropicalevo]

10 hours ago, jamesbrock said:

 

The problem is the science of cloud seeding is far from settled.

 

As I've posted a few times, this comprehensive study by the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences concludes:

 

 

 

1,496,500,000 baht was allocated to the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation in FY 2014, and a further 1,563,400,000 baht in FY 2015, yet the country was wracked by its worst drought in 50 years during that time - the only time that they can actually, possibly, maybe, "make" it rain is monsoon season...

 

As beachtime said, the money would be better spent on water trucks delivering real water.

 

Whilst the article may be of interest to some, your quoted summary at the end does not hold water. ie how can the trucks deliver real water that Samui does not have? We are in a drought.

 

Anyway - back on topic. The rain making has worked where I live at the pointy end of Samui. 4 days of continuous rain. The pool that is under construction but not complete, now holds approx 18 cubic meters of fresh rain water.

 

Free to anyone who wants it.

[samuijimmy]

At least we are getting rain, I assume around most areas of Samui now? ... a little later than last year's start.

 

Hardly stopped in Ban Por area all day today...

[samuijimmy]

Derogatory and off topic posts removed.....

[lemonjelly]

If there are already a lot of particles in the upper atmosphere(dust etc)seeding can have negative effects as the water molecules are then "shared" over a greater amount of particles which never attain the the amount of water molecules required to form raindrops.
Not an expert, just something I saw on a science channel.


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[jamesbrock]

Self censored.

[Rooo]

Water shortage eases on Samui, that's the official word in BKK post.

[TheLobster]

Hammered it down last night. Also a fair amount of rain last week. The drought is over, the rainmaking operation worked

[khunPer]

"Rainmaking operation" – or just monsoon-season – not to forget I also asked my girls to dance rain-dance...

[gk10002000]

Well, Saumi got over developed quickly and massively.   Odds are it won't go back to low level less intense living or tourism.  As an engineer and someone who has lived in both the tropics and the desert, it is still hard for me to see Samui as having a drought.  But it won't be the first tropical island to run out of potable or sufficient irrigation water.  Total lack of any hydraulic planning, reservoir construction, etc.  The island gets an average of what 70 inches of rain per year I think.   That should be enough to do some decent planning.  But that all takes money, and time and effort and Samui and much of Thailand is not a modern planned development community, nor did most people want it that way.  That is why for decades Thailand was cheap and easy.  Now the piper is submitting his bill.   Too bad desalination is not yet inexpensive given that Samui is an island surrounded by water.