In some places, it’s used to boost rainfall or prevent hailstorms. “The state of the science has progressed to the point that it is a question that we can and should be trying to address now.”Ĭloud seeding can take a few different forms. “Certainly we’re in a better position now to address that question than we were 10 years ago,” said Jeff French, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wyoming. Today, cloud seeding research represents the cutting edge of weather and climate science-a convergence of questions about the influence of warming on our dwindling water resources and our ability to control those consequences. Scientists aren’t sure how well cloud seeding works today, let alone in a warmer climate.Īmid growing concerns about water resources in the western U.S., scientists are working to answer those questions. Interest in cloud seeding is growing as temperatures steadily rise, increasing drought risks in places like the Mountain West. and dozens of countries around the world. It’s used today to boost precipitation in at least eight states across the western U.S. “Cloud seeding” is a real practice-in fact, it’s been around for decades. This is not a page from a science fiction novel. They fall from the cloud and drift gently toward the Earth, dusting the mountaintops with fresh snow. These frozen clusters eventually grow too heavy to stay in the air. Water droplets begin to cluster around the particles, freezing solid as they gather together. The crystalline silver iodide particles have a structure similar to ice-and inside a cloud, like attracts like. There, an elegant transformation takes place. It’s meant to make snow.Īs the wind whips the particles across the mountaintops, drafts of air sweep them higher into the sky-so high that some of them eventually touch the clouds. They’re tiny bits of crushed-up silver iodide, a crystal-like photosensitive substance once used in photography.īut it’s not used to take pictures out in the mountains. With a low hiss, puffs of particles belch from their mouths into the air, where the wind catches them and whisks them away. Open flames burst from the throats of metal chimneys, mounted on squat towers nestled among the peaks. There are pros and cons of every type of storage, but with the rise of inexpensive cloud storage, the pros outweigh the cons for most people.The mountaintops rumble to life unnaturally each year as snow clouds darken the sky across the West. ![]() PCloud, offer a lifetime plan where you pay once and have permanent access to that storage.Īs we’ve explained, cloud storage can be perfectly secure and safe to use. And if you dislike the idea of paying a monthly or yearly subscription for cloud storage, some providers, such as The provider buys all the hard drives and replaces them when they wear out, and makes those backups for you. This is why, ultimately, cloud storage is one of the most convenient options. There’s a fairly high up-front cost of a NAS drive and you’ll still have to make backups of the files stored on it in case it is damaged or stolen. Effectively it’s your own personal cloud storage. ![]() ![]() ![]() The best models have good companion apps and allow you to access those files even when you’re not home. This is a hard drive you plug into your home router and can be used to store all the files you’d usually upload to the cloud. However, there is one other option: a NAS drive. And if you’re worried about hard drive or SSD failure, most cloud providers store multiple copies of each file, typically in different data centres so that even if the worst happened, a backup exists in a different physical location.įor instance, Google distributes data across many servers in different locations and if there happens to be a fire or any other disruption at one site it automatically shifts data access to another. On that latter point, many data centres reduce the amount of oxygen in the air to minimise the risk of fires. Staff have have very restricted access to servers (and their hard drives) but there are lots of other measures that help to ensure your photos, videos and other files are safe from prying eyes – including hackers – and even physical damage from fire. Those servers are housed in data centres which are built with security in mind. Even Apple’s iCloud service stores some data on Amazon and Google servers. A couple of examples include Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. A rather nebulous term, the reality is thankfully much simpler: the cloud is simply a network of servers on the internet which have huge amounts of storage.
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