Improving urban weather, climate and air quality

  Urban climate research is an interdisciplinary field that studies the interactions between cities and the environment, with a focus on how cities affect, and are affected by, climate and weather patterns. Cities have unique characteristics that can create a microclimate with distinctive features such as higher temperatures, reduced air quality, and more extreme weather events compared to their surrounding rural areas. This difference is often referred to as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Urban climate research aims to provide insights into the mechanisms that lead to UHIs and its potential impacts on human life, the environment and the economy. Urban climate research methods typically involve field experiments, observational studies, and computer models. Researchers use a variety of instruments such as high-resolution weather stations, UAVs, lidars, temperature sensors, air quality monitors, and satellite data to measure the variables that affect urban climate, including wea...

  Geoengineering refers to the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the Earth's climate system to counteract the effects of global warming. One technique used in geoengineering is cloud seeding, a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into them. Cloud seeding works by introducing condensation nuclei , or tiny particles, into clouds. The particles attract water droplets which then grow larger and heavier, eventually falling as precipitation. The specific type of particles used in cloud seeding can vary depending on the desired outcome. For example, silver iodide is commonly used to increase snowfall, while sodium chloride is used to stimulate the growth of rain droplets. The process of cloud seeding involves deploying the particles into the clouds using various methods such as airplanes or ground-based generators. The particles then mix with the existing moisture in the clouds and p...