South Korea, China to tackle air pollution through artificial rain

Air pollution is growing at an alarming rate and in order to fight it off, South Korea and China, in a joint project, have planned to create their own artificial rain to get rid of pollution from the air.

South Korea is facing immense air pollution issues that not only contributes to global warming, but also leads to deaths and sickness. The country has thus, turned to a relatively new method of creating artificial rain.

Along with China, the two countries plan on generating artificial rain over the Yellow Sea to the west of the Korean Peninsula to clear pollution from the air, since majority of the pollution comes from the neighboring country.

China to launch biggest artificial rain experiment ever

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in’s spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom said, “China has claimed that South Korea’s dust flies towards Shanghai, so creating artificial rain over the Yellow Sea would help the Chinese side too,” reported Al-Jazeera.

The process of artificial rain involves seeding the atmosphere with specific chemicals, usually by planes, to promote the formation of clouds. This helps disperse pollution when the clouds rain. The rain which is created through those clouds then attracts and pulls the polluting aerosol particles out of the sky, explained Science Alert.

In order to tackle the increasing air pollution, South Korea has already taken many measures including stopping usage of old coal-burning power plants, installing high-capacity air purifiers, and limiting the number of vehicles. However, it is unclear as to when exactly the plan would be put to practice.