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Pakistan Uses Cloud Seeding For The first Time To Fight Pollution In Lahore

Air quality in Lahore has been particularly bad in the last few weeks, and the Punjab government employed several tactics, including the early closure of businesses and keeping schools off for two extra days to help improve the air quality – but nothing worked.

Pakistan witnessed the implementation of artificial rain for the first time to address in Lahore, ranked one of the worst places globally for air pollution. This announcement was made by the provincial government. 

"Planes equipped with cloud seeding technology were flown over 10 specified areas in the city," said the Caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab, Mohsin Naqvi. The experimental measure occurred amid Lahore's global ranking among the most severely affected regions by air pollution.

Air quality in Lahore has been particularly bad in the last few weeks, and the Punjab government employed several tactics, including the early closure of businesses and keeping schools off for two extra days to help improve the air quality – but nothing worked.

“The ‘gift’ was provided by the United Arab Emirates,” Naqvi said.

“Teams from the UAE, along with two planes, arrived here about 10 to 12 days ago. They used 48 flares to create the rain,” he said.

The UAE has increasingly used cloud seeding, sometimes referred to as artificial rain or blueskying, to create rain in the arid expanse of the country.

What is Cloud seeding?

Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that improves a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny ice nuclei into certain types of subfreezing clouds. 

In the cloud-seeding process, silver iodide, a yellowish salt, is burned in clouds in a compound with acetone to encourage condensation to form as rain.

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