Cloud seeding useless, as rain begins to fall
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Climatologists said that some western parts of Java island was entering the transitional period between the dry and rainy seasons, therefore the city administration's plan to carry out cloud seeding would not be necessary.
A senior researcher with the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan), Erna Sri Adiningsih, said that rain had fallen in several areas of the city.
"If the purpose of the cloud seeding is only to make Jakarta wet, I think it's unnecessary to spend so much money, as rain has begun to fall," Erna told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
She was referring to the Rp 2.2 billion (US$258,824) cloud seeding project the administration proposed to initiate in mid- September.
Erna also said there was no guarantee that the cloud seeding would be successful.
A similar statement was given by Paulus Agus Winarso, a senior scientist at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).
He told the Post that spending such a great amount of money on the project would be too risky for the administration, as there was no guarantee that it would be successful.
Paulus also said the international climatology community had yet to recommend cloud seeding or other weather modification methods to resolve the ongoing drought.
He even questioned the efficiency of the project, even if it did manage to create rainfall in the city, as the water would flow straight to the rivers and the sea because of the city's limited capacity to accommodate the precipitation.
"The result of the project would not be worth the Rp 2.2 billion slated for its budget," he said.
Erna pointed out that heavy rain from the cloud seeding would be unlikely this month for various reasons, including the unstable atmospheric condition and average cloud cover.
She did, however, support an earlier statement by head of the City Environmental Management Agency Kosasih Wirahadikusumah that inducing rainfall in the midst of the dry season would reduce the volume of rain during the peak of the rainy season, which usually causes flooding in the capital.