Indian scientists to ‘seed’ clouds so rain may dampen New Delhi smog

Indian scientists and environmentalist are planning to “seed” clouds to produce rain over India’s capital New Delhi as part of a desperate attempt to deal with a blanket of choking smog which has enveloped the city for more than a week.

Experts anticipate clouds over Delhi around November 20th, which they hope will have enough moisture content to trigger rain after seeding them with salts such as silver iodide and solid carbon-dioxide in a measure estimated to cost €112,300 but without any guarantee of success.

Until then experts estimate that the concentration of smog for Delhi’s 20 million residents, which has been linked to respiratory ailments, lung cancer and heart disease, will remain 96.2 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended air quality index, currently classified as “hazardous”.

Local authorities have closed all schools and other educational institutions, asked people to work from home, restricted the movement of trucks and other vehicles and halted all building activity as fine dust, sand and cement particles from it further add pollutants to Delhi’s fetid air, creating a toxic haze.

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Visibility remains very low as the city’s voluminous traffic crawls along with headlights in use during the day.

Flights and rail services to the capital have been delayed, and locals have been using gas masks or scarves as protection from the noxious air, rendered even more lethal by smoke from farmers burning crop residue in Delhi’s two neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana.

According to officials, nearly 40 per cent of Delhi’s pollution has, since the end of October, been exacerbated by more than 3,500 fires in both states where farmers burned paddy stubble ahead of sowing their winter wheat crop. The resultant smoke has hung over Delhi, trapped tightly in the cold and dense winter air.

City hospitals have been filling up with children and the elderly suffering from respiratory ailments.

Amid such mayhem there were few measures that were being executed to tackle the emergency. A handful of trucks had been deployed to sprinkle water across the city to damp down pollutants, but with little effect.

“It is with a sense of incredulity and shortness of breath that Delhi watches the local government resort to unscientific, unproven and even discarded measures to tackle air pollution,” The Times of India said in an editorial on Friday.

The smog outside the national capital’s offices and homes was but a reflection of the smog over policymaking, it added.

In the meantime Delhi’s municipal officials and police anticipate worsening pollution on and after Diwali, an annual festival of lights, on Sunday, when millions of people illuminate their homes and workplaces with oil lamps and burst noxious crackers.

Earlier this year Chicago University’s 2023 Air Quality Life Index report estimated that air pollution in Delhi shortened the lifespan of its residents by an average of 11.9 years.

Delhi’s pollution crisis, however, has spawned a wave of cynical and acerbic posts on social media. One which captured the mood stated: “men smoke cigarettes, real men smoke cigars, but legends live in Delhi.”