Advances in the Evaluation of Cloud Seeding: Statistical Evidence for the Enhancement of Precipitation

Abstract Cloud seeding has been actively carried out across the globe in the past several decades due to the uneven spatial‐temporal distribution of precipitation. The catalytic effects of artificial precipitation enhancement experiments and operations caused widely academic debates in atmospheric physics. Both atmospheric physicists and statisticians have made much effort for exploratory and confirmatory studies on scientific evaluation of cloud seeding. Recent progresses and critical problems on how to evaluate cloud seeding and acquire statistical evidence for the enhancement of precipitation, including the design of statistical tests, the selection of target indicators and covariates, the evaluation of statistical methods, and the outlook of cloud seeding evaluation, are reviewed. We describe important issues, aiming to reduce systematic errors and uncertainties in statistical tests as well as increase the level of quantitative sounding and evaluation. First, a regularized set of design and operation in the steps should be established to optimize techniques of cloud seeding. Second, the latest achievements in atmospheric physics, physical sounding, and statistics need to be introduced to help improve the correctness and scientificity. Third, middle‐ and long‐term special research projects are expected to investigate the influence of ideal hypotheses of seeding schemes, statistical test plans, and statistical methods. These demands can update our knowledge and technology of weather modification and increase the cooperation of multidiscipline, such as logical integration of statistical tests, physical analysis, and numerical modeling.