Scientists fly into clouds to study composition

Pune: In a first of its kind national experiment, a group of scientists took their first sortie in an aeroplane to study the components of clouds responsible for rainfall, from Pune on Sunday.
The plane flew for about an hour-and-a-half on Sunday.
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, is leading this experiment called Cloud-Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX)'. This experiment will be conducted from 2009 to 2012. The experiment's flag-off function took place at the Pune Airport on Sunday afternoon.
According to the officials at IITM, various institutes, including University of Pune and the India Meteorological Department are helping with this project. The project will cost about Rs 10 crore.
Speaking at a press meet organised at IITM, IITM director B N Goswami said, "Before this day, we studied clouds standing on the ground, with the help of instruments, or from the outer space, using satellites. But this is first time that we will be going inside clouds to study their composition."
He added that the experiment will be helpful in making cloud-seeding projects more scientific and accurate.
18/05/09 Times of India

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Categories: New May 2009