인공강우 실험 결과는 한달 뒤…예상 효과성은?

South Korea is creating artificial rain to try and reduce fine dust.
A pilot project is launched today, with planes spraying siver iodide over the western coastline of Gyeonggi-do Province.
Hong Yoo zooms in on this new measure to improve the nation's air quality.
Early Friday morning, South Korea began its first national-scale test of artificial rain to study its effectiveness in reducing fine dust.
A plane took off from Gimpo Airport near Seoul, carrying silver iodide, a chemical that helps form water droplets inside clouds.
It headed for the western coast of Gyeonggi-do Province and went all the way down to the coast of Jeollabuk-do Province.
As it went, the plane sprayed 24 bursts of silver iodide above the clouds that had formed over the sea.
Now, officials on a ship are analyzing the changes in fine dust density and rain.
It'll take a month to determine the effectiveness of the technique, but the government will announce the progress of their analysis next Monday.
Some experts, however, have doubts about artificial rain, which has been tried in countries like Thailand and China.
It has had a success rate of only about 40 percent.
To reduce fine dust density by 10 percent... would require more than 10 millimeters of rain in a period of three hours.
"Clouds in Thailand tend to rain a lot when seeded, but clouds in Korea are not the right kind for cloud seeding."
Plus, making artificial rain in regions with high levels of fine dust could cause problems for other regions.
"The amount of moisture in the atmosphere is limited. If you make it rain in one spot or a certain spot that you want, other people are going to lose that amount of rain. Droughts being severe in our country,... other people will lose that rain."
The government has 14 more tests planned for this year.
Hong Yoo, Arirang News.