{
  "id": 16692255,
  "title": "El Nino fires test limits of Southeast Asia’s cloud-seeding bet",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/27/el-nino-fires-test-limits-of-southeast-asias-cloud-seeding-bet",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-27T02:09:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Japan Times",
    "slug": "japan-times",
    "url": "https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/27/asia-pacific/el-nino-cloud-seeding/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Cloud-seeding initiatives in Southeast Asia have failed to alleviate wildfires or clear the persistent haze that has enveloped the region for months, highlighting the constraints of weather modification efforts. Indonesia and Malaysia have carried out over 100 such operations this year, seeking to induce rain to counter the severe drought caused by El Nino. This intense dryness has ravaged soils in Sumatra and Borneo, resulting in a decade's worst wildfire season. The haze has adversely affected oil palm yields, closed schools, and degraded air quality as far as neighboring Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Despite the significant financial investment in these missions, including the use of dry ice to disperse warm air layers that trap smog, the outcomes have been largely inconclusive. As nations continue to allocate more resources to combat increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns, the question arises as to the efficacy of these expenditures when weather extremes are the norm.",
  "summary": "As countries spend more trying to alter erratic rainfall patterns with few lasting results, the question of the payoff rises for such investments.",
  "key_points": [
    "Southeast Asia's cloud-seeding initiatives have failed to curb wildfires or haze.",
    "Indonesia and Malaysia conducted over 100 cloud-seeding operations this year.",
    "Haze impacts oil palm yields, schools, and air quality in neighboring countries."
  ],
  "editors_take": "The failure of expensive cloud-seeding missions to mitigate El Nino-driven wildfires suggests that weather modification cannot reliably counter the intensifying environmental extremes currently ravaging Southeast Asian ecosystems and economies.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}