JAKARTA - The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has denied the narrative circulating on social media regarding weather modification operations (OMC) which is said to be risky and potentially a "time bomb" if it is carried out continuously.
BMKG emphasized that OMC is a measured and science-based mitigation of disasters. OMC is run purely for the protection of the community through the management of rainfall, both by increasing and reducing it as needed.
"BMKG emphasizes that the implementation of OMC is purely aimed at disaster mitigation and community protection by increasing or decreasing rainfall, not a trigger for unstable weather," wrote the BMKG statement, Wednesday, January 28.
The implementation of OMC by the government, according to BMKG, was taken as a response to the decreasing carrying capacity of the environment and the increasing threat of climate change.
"Pun, there is no logical interest for the government to create bad weather that harms the economy or endangers citizens. OMC is a tool to manage weather risks in the midst of limited environmental capacity," he said.
The narrative circulating on social media says OMC can trigger unstable weather, form cold pools, move rain to other areas, and create a false sense of security. BMKG considers the claim to be scientifically incorrect.
In his explanation, BMKG said the cold pool is a completely natural meteorological phenomenon. This phenomenon occurs when rainwater evaporates under a thunderstorm cloud, cools the air, and then creates a mass of cold air that falls to the surface.
"Normally, whenever it rains naturally, without human intervention, a cold pool must be formed naturally," wrote BMKG.
BMKG emphasized that associating cold pools as a dangerous side effect of OMC is a scientific error. The reason is that the cloud seeding technique in OMC does not create new clouds, but works on clouds that already exist in nature.
If OMC succeeds in accelerating the rain, the cold pool that is formed physically and chemically will be identical to the cold pool from natural rain. In terms of energy scale, BMKG said that current human technology has not been able to create a large-scale cold air mass.
"Through weather modification, humans only trigger natural processes in clouds that are already saturated, instead of building a giant atmospheric cooling system," explained BMKG.
Regarding the allegation that OMC moved the rain to neighboring areas and had the potential to cause flooding, BMKG explained that there were two main methods used to protect strategic areas. First, the jumping process method, namely the seeding of clouds detected from the sea before reaching the land so that the rain falls in the waters.
Second, the competition method, which is applied to clouds that grow directly over land. Planting is done early to interfere with cloud growth so that it does not develop into a massive Cumulonimbus cloud, so that the intensity of rain can be dispersed, not moved to other areas.
However, BMKG admits that the main factor in flooding is not determined solely by rainfall, but also by the ability of the environment to respond to falling rainwater. The loss of about 800 wells in the Jabodetabek area since the 1930s is said to be one of the causes of the decline in the absorption area.
Therefore, BMKG considers that environmental arrangement remains the main key in flood management. However, in the midst of a declining environmental carrying capacity, rain reduction efforts such as OMC are still considered necessary in parallel.
"In the future, environmental arrangements must continue to be carried out and the capacity for weather modification must also be improved. Because the challenge of climate change is not a mere fantasy because the potential for extreme rain will also continue to increase," he added.
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