Urgent Problems and Thinking of Development for Precipitation Enhancement in China

esearch in precipitation enhancement around the world has a history of over sixty years. Over those decades, there have been significant development and progress in precipitation enhancement. However, until now, many scientific and technological problems associated with precipitation enhancement demand urgent solution. Hence, we have to improve the scientific and technological level. First of all, research in some critical technologies such as prediction of seeded clouds, indexes for selecting clouds, and optimization of seeding methods needs to be emphasized so as to reduce the degree of blindness to the utmost. In addition, the evaluation of weather modification attainments has been perplexing scientists without an ideal solution. Scientific reserves including understanding of basic cloud seeding technology, modern observational equipment, and hightech talent are not enough as well. At present, to make breakthrough in weather modification, we have to reform in terms of strategy and technology application and avoid following the old routine. Four critical technologies of developing precipitation enhancement are proposed in the present study, including conduct shorttime, local prediction of clouds and precipitation, having a good indexes to identify and selecting clouds suitable for rain enhancement, optimizing methods of artificial seeding, and conducting evaluation through control observations and comparative analysis scientifically.